


A Little Luck and Kindness

by wjmoon (sodapeach)



Category: Produce 101 (TV), X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bad Flirting, Domestic Fluff, Falling In Love, Fate, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Magic, Meant To Be, Pining, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, im bad at picking tags yall know by now, slow burn so long you could cook a pork shoulder with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-20 21:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20682197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodapeach/pseuds/wjmoon
Summary: Seungwoo’s luck turns around after he does something kind for someone who turns out to be a witch in disguise who enchants him to find his soulmate.OrSeungwoo and Seungyoun are fated to be together as if by magic ft. Wooseok and Hangyul BFFs





	1. Strangers

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally intended to be a one shot, but it was getting out of hand so I split it up.
> 
> Please enjoy with your favorite blanket and a cup of something warm!

Just when Seungwoo thought his day couldn’t get any worse, it started to rain. He had already poured coffee down the front of his pants earning himself a few extra burns in some questionable places. Then after missing his bus to work he thought that surely it wouldn’t have been a three strike day, but luck was never on his side. The report he had spent the whole week on somehow disappeared from the cloud that he shared with a reasonably suspicious office mate who liked to set his things down on his keyboard when he left to go to the bathroom, so Seungwoo had to spend not one but two whole extra hours after work trying to piece it back together.

The moment he reached the rotating glass doors of his office building, he was filled with an overwhelming sense of dread that one only experienced the moment they set their eyes on a darkened horizon above giant, merky, and growing rain puddles.

He sighed. The weather app on his phone said it wasn’t supposed to rain at all that week, and even as he checked it then, it still said cloudy with a twenty percent chance of rain.  _ Twenty percent, my ass. _

Because he put too much trust in his deceitful weather app, he left his umbrella at home that morning in the bin next to the golf club he kept for protection. It was more practical than a baseball bat, he had decided. No one fucks with a nine iron to the face. But at least he had his coat. 

He had purchased it with his first paycheck when he first started at the company a year before Yohan — the intern who was most certainly guilty of erasing his cloud data —started, well, erasing his cloud data. It was practical, warm, it went with everything, but most importantly, it was weather–sealed. He pulled the hood up over his head and headed out into the storm resolved that if he was going to get rained on, he might as well get rained on while it was still daylight.

He marched through an unrelenting torrent of rain paired with piercing winds that were determined to give him a bald spot, but he refused to let it ruin his mood. Yes, Seungwoo was terribly unlucky, but he was cheerful because it was Friday and that meant that he could spend the whole weekend recovering from a work week that was out to kill him. 

Fifteen minutes of shielding water from his glasses passed before he found an old lady shivering in the cold. She didn’t have an umbrella, and by the looks of her dressed in rags with a shopping cart full of her things under a thin tarp, he supposed she didn’t have much really at all. She was panhandling as strangers walked by, willfully ignoring her. Some dropped coins into an overturned coffee tin that was filling up with rainwater faster than it was with money. Maybe his day wasn’t so bad after all. 

He didn’t have any cash on him, but he thought of his own grandmother shivering in the rain alone and couldn’t stand it. He took off his favorite weather–sealed coat and wrapped it around her shoulders hoping she wouldn’t feel offended.

“Here you go, granny,” he said. “I’m sorry it isn’t much.”

She eyed him curiously, and he stepped back embarrassed, but he left before she could give it back or shout at him. 

If he hadn’t turned around in such a hurry to get to his bus unscolded, he might have noticed the smirk creep up on her wrinkled mouth. He might have noticed the thinning lips plump into a delicate peach or the weather worn face change into something gentle and soft like tissue. He might have also noticed the young woman in the place of the old lady wave her fingers at him or the smoke that rose from them as he ran away without his coat into the rain.

“This is going to be fun,” she said to herself and vanished, taking his coat and her can of coins with her.

Seungwoo made it to the bus stop before the bus he needed, but for some terrible reason, it was packed with people. All he could hope for was that they weren’t all headed to the same place, but from what he could tell, among the usual crowd of office workers students was an entire stranded soccer club and few old men who had started the Friday night celebrations a little too early. It didn’t matter if they were all meant to squeeze onto the same bus (which would have been its own nightmare), because there was no room to stand underneath the plexiglass cover so he was going to die of pneumonia before the bus came anyway.

It didn’t matter. He had done something nice for a stranger who needed it more than he did. That would keep him warm enough.

A few minutes of shivering passed, and suddenly it had stopped raining. Well, it  _ hadn’t  _ stopped raining based on the fact that water was still splashing on his shoes and the whole street was getting a free cleaning, but he wasn’t getting drenched anymore. 

He looked up at the clear plastic umbrella over his head and jumped, startled. A stranger, not much younger than himself by the looks of him, gave him a shy smile as he held his own umbrella over both of them. Seungwoo was flustered. Was he supposed to tell him that he didn’t have to shelter him? He didn’t want to get rained on anymore. What was the polite thing to do in this situation? 

But before he could thank him, or apologize, or demand an explanation, or make any sort of verbal contact, the stranger with the feathery black hair and the soft happy eyes behind his own pair of glasses turned away to make room for one of the soccer players who did  _ not  _ want to get his freshly attached ankle cast rained on.

So for a few minutes Seungwoo was dry. He stole glances at the other who wouldn’t have heard him anyway over the music he cycled through on his phone thanks to his airpods. It took a brave or reckless soul to wear airpods next to a storm drain. He guessed the right thing to do was to keep an eye on his ears in case one of them fell out in danger of being swept away forever in case he had to drop down to save them in exchange for the stranger using all of his energy keeping them both dry. 

He shook himself, realizing he had been staring. What a silly thing to do, worrying about someone else’s airpods. He didn’t even have his own airpods to worry about. He should get some airpods. What was the other guy listening to? He craned his neck to get a glance of his phone screen for a song recommendation. He probably had excellent taste.

He shook himself again.  _ What is wrong with me… _

If the stranger had noticed, he had one hell of a poker face and became all that more unsettling. What was he hiding? What were his secrets? What about his dreams and fears?

Seungwoo shook himself for a third time. He was just tired and flustered. He glued his eyes to a single crack in the sidewalk, determined to not do anything else weird while waiting for his bus. He could make it another, what, fifteen minutes tops? 

The stranger stumbled into him, shoved by one of the drunks who were sick and tired of waiting for the same bus that was likely to hold him, them, the soccer players, the students, and the cute stranger whose umbrella tumbled to the ground. Seungwoo staggered out, hit with a burst of cold water against his back that somehow stung when paired with the soaked button up that clung to him already.

At least he was able to break the stranger’s fall who was red faced from the incident so his debt was probably paid off. The stranger picked his umbrella up off the ground that was now dented in a way that made the water spout off onto one of the passengers lucky enough to stand under the cover. The passenger shrieked in surprise, and the stranger fell back onto Seungwoo again who steadied him in his arms which was equally as embarrassing for the both of them.

He moved in between him and the others so that the rainwater could run off to the side and because every time someone shoved the stranger, it activated some kind of deeply embedded protective instinct that made him want to guard him at all costs. He didn’t know what everyone was so fussy for.  _ They  _ were dry — well, except for that one person who got doused by the gutter on the side of the big umbrella, but whose fault was that really.

The stranger bit his lip and looked off to the side like he was considering how much trouble it would be to just walk home instead, but then a big blue bus with a young idol’s face plastered to the side pulled up like a giant rolling relief–mobile for everyone involved. The soccer players and the drunks piled on first followed by the stranger who was barely able to get his damaged umbrella closed, but to Seungwoo’s dismay, it wasn’t his bus. 

He sat on the bench, sheltered from the rain next to a couple of other passengers who hadn’t been lucky enough to need that one bus either, and he realized as it drove away, he never got to ask for his name.

Later that evening, Seungwoo was on his couch devoid of any rain soaked clothing and off of work for the weekend.

It was still pouring outside, so ordering in felt too cruel. His fridge was crudely barren, and if his mother saw it, she’d have a fit. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t like to cook. Why spend money on groceries when he could just spend money on food made by someone else who was likely to be a better cook than him. 

There was one thing he had in stock, and that was ramen. And there was no one around to see him grab the extra pack that he had  _ earned.  _ He  _ deserved  _ the extra serving of noodles after the day he had. He did take the time to prepare a few ingredients to make it “healthy” and to make it taste extra special, so it counted as cooking. As he watched the water boil, he thought that it was a shame to eat such delicious ramen alone.

And that thought lasted a total of four minutes and thirty seven seconds which was the exact amount of time he needed before he pulled the pot off the stove and transferred it to a hot pot holder in front of his television. He found a comfortable spot on the floor, turned on his favorite show, and prepared for the most relaxing weekend of his entire life.

Until his phone rang. It was Wooseok who was determined to ruin his whole mood by the way he chose to communicate. Seungwoo learned that if he texted him, dmed him, or subtweeted him, whatever he had to say wouldn’t be laced with something nefarious. If he called him, he would use his charm to talk Seungwoo into something horrible. If he  _ video called  _ him, Seungwoo would have to move because whatever it was, he wasn’t going to be able to talk his way out of. He let it ring a few times before picking up.

“You better not be eating ramen,” Wooseok said before Seungwoo could say hello.

He looked around. “Did you bug my house?”

“No, I just know you hate to order food when it’s raining,” he said, knowing too much.

“What did you need? My noodles are getting soggy.”

“If you say yes, this won’t take long.”

“Say yes to what?” He said, more concerned about his food than Wooseok’s whims.

“Not tonight because it’s gross out, but I want to meet up with a couple friends tomorrow night for drinks and food or something because I’ve been trapped inside for months,” he said. Seungwoo could hear the sound of the tv in the background and wondered how bored he was.

“And?” 

“Are you in?”

“Why do I have to go?” Seungwoo asked between bites he refused to wait any longer for.

“Because I get nervous when you’re not around,” Wooseok said, jabbing him right in the chest. There was that protective instinct again.

“You can’t be shy  _ and  _ social,” he said.

“And why not?”

“Because maybe I don’t want to hang out with a bunch of people I don’t know,” Seungwoo whined. 

“You know Hangyul,” Wooseok reminded him. “And it’s just going to be him and one of his friends.”

“Hmm,” he said, considering it. “That’s all?”

“Yep,” Wooseok assured him. “I don’t want to throw a party or anything. I just want to get out of my apartment before I lose my mind.”

Seungwoo sighed, disappointed that his solid plans of doing nothing for two days had been ruined. “Alright, I’ll go. But you’re paying for drinks!”

Wooseok laughed. “We’ll see about that!”

After the call ended, he was left with just his soggy noodles and a lingering sense of anxiety. He hurried off to his fridge to grab a beer which would surely make his Friday night great again.

Saturday came, and he had most of the day all to himself until Wooseok came over earlier than expected. Maybe he was just really stir crazy from being stuck in his apartment, but this gave Seungwoo the perfect opportunity to tell someone how terrible his day was and Wooseok was a fantastic listener. 

“Wait, what guy?” Wooseok asked, missing the whole point of the story.

“It was just some guy nice enough to hold his umbrella over both of us,” he said, shrugging it off.

“Oh, sure, because people do that,” Wooseok said. “People totally hold umbrellas over other people’s heads that they don’t know outside of dramas.”

Seungwoo frowned and pouted, but there was an annoying part of him that wished that Wooseok had a point even if he would have to acknowledge that he would never see that stranger again. “You don’t know. You weren’t there.”

“I wish I had been there,” Wooseok said, propping his chin up on his hands with a long sigh. “I want a cute guy to hold his umbrella over me when it’s raining.”

“I never said he was cute,” Seungwoo said.

“You didn’t have to.”

Seungwoo walked to the kitchen to hide how flushed his face was, fighting his urge to smile like a lovestruck fool who had been caught red handed once he had his back turned to Wooseok. He did not need to give the other an excuse to ask him more questions like  _ what was he wearing  _ or  _ what did he smell like _ as if Seungwoo could possibly know that he smelled like pine and fresh laundry even though it was raining. His eyes widened.  _ I’m so glad he didn’t hear that. _

“Do you want anything to drink?” he asked, covering his own shame.

“I think just water,” Wooseok said from his spot in the living room. He had successfully taken over the couch the moment Seungwoo left, and Seungwoo wondered if Wooseok really wanted to go out or if it was just his apartment he was avoiding. Wooseok didn’t like to be home alone when he was sick.

“Are you feeling okay?” he said, returning with a glass of filtered ice water. He set the glass down on a coaster on the table before putting the back of his hand on Wooseok’s forehead. 

“Do I look okay?”

“Your face is kind of warm,” he frowned. “Maybe we should stay home tonight.”

Wooseok waved him off and took his water. “I’m fine, Dr. Han. You’re just trying to get out of my super cool weekend plans.”

“What are we doing anyway?”

Wooseok waved his finger. “No, no, you’ll ruin the surprise.”

“Why does it have to be a surprise?”

“Because it’s more fun for me that way,” Wooseok said, quite pleased with himself. 

After bringing up the possibility that Wooseok was coming down with something, the subject of the cute, mysterious, umbrella wielding stranger was dropped and forgotten as all chance encounters should be. They spent the rest of the afternoon playing video games (which was fine for him since that was what he was going to do anyway and they were more fun with a friend) until the time came to leave.

He went into his closet and found a sweater he hoped would be warm enough in case it got chilly that night. 

“That’s different,” Wooseok said. “Where’s that coat you always wear?”

“Oh, I gave it to some lady,” he said, not wanting to explain any further. 

Seungwoo and Wooseok headed to the designated meeting spot where Hangyul and his friend were supposed to be, but it seemed that they were late so while Wooseok texted Hangyul to find out how long they would be, Seungwoo wandered over to a vendor selling flavored lemonades.

He got blueberry for Wooseok because blueberries were supposed to be immune boosting, and he still wasn’t convinced that Wooseok wasn’t coming down with something. For himself he got strawberries because he liked them, and he didn’t need a reason other than that. If the others came, he would get them something too if they wanted, but after that, Wooseok was going to have to pay for everything else. He put his foot down.

Wooseok took his drink that Seungwoo had paid for against their original agreement and told him that they would arrive in about ten minutes. That gave them enough time to enjoy their drinks and for his unnecessary nerves to calm down. It wasn’t like he was going on a blind date or third wheeling because Hangyul was just one of Wooseok’s work friends, but he still felt like  _ someone  _ was on a date. Maybe it was the fact that Wooseok was keeping secrets like he was up to something. 

“Oh, there they are,” Wooseok pointed down the street as Seungwoo took a big sip of his lemonade. First he saw Hangyul, but then his eyes moved to Hangyul’s friend and he spat his drink out everywhere. “Hey!”

He coughed and sputtered, barely able to catch his breath, and Wooseok pounded on his back to help him get it all out. Hangyul looked reasonable concerned, but his friend was avoiding eye contact at all possible cost.

Once Seungwoo was alright, he waved Wooseok off to stop smacking him like a burping baby which was a different kind of embarrassing. 

“You good?” Hangyul asked.

Seungwoo coughed. “I’m fine.”

Remembering that he was supposed to give introductions, Wooseok informed Seungwoo that Hangyul’s friend was named Seungyoun, but Seungwoo already knew him as the cute guy with an umbrella.  _ Seungyoun. This is humiliating.  _

Luckily for him, Seungyoun didn’t feel inclined to say anything either so he probably didn’t recognize him which was fair. There were like a dozen people at the bus stop, and Seungwoo was the one who had been staring the whole time like an idiot. At least then he could pretend that choking on his drink was the only thing to be embarrassed about.

“So what’s the plan,” Hangyul asked Wooseok. 

“Everyone, today is a special night,” he informed them. “The four of us are going to have our own spooky adventure.”

“But it’s not Halloween yet,” Seungwoo said, suspicious.

“Yeah, and we all have jobs, and this was the only night everyone was free and available, what’s your point?” Wooseok said inarguably.

Seungwoo shrugged, and the others seemed fine with it too. 

“Good!” Wooseok clapped. “First we’re going to go have our fortunes read.”

The three who weren’t Wooseok all looked at each other curiously, but no one had an objection to the first part of his plan. It seemed harmless enough.

The fortune teller who Wooseok had picked out was only a few blocks away. The shop had a neon hand in the window with other services such as tarot and spiritual guide written in neon as well. Seungwoo didn’t mind having his palm read or anything because it was all in good fun.

They entered the building in a single file. It was dark inside with a few low amber colored lights that made the space more eerie than it needed to be. Gentle harp music played from a pair of old speakers, and Seungwoo wondered if the atmosphere was the reason that Wooseok had picked the shop in the first place. It certainly was spooky.

They had to walk through a curtain of beads to enter the main chamber where a large round table was placed in the center of the room. It was draped with a purple velvet cloth with nothing on it. The walls were decorated with two types of wallpaper split by a wooden band around the room. The top part depicted a mural of people in ceremonial clothing dancing with skeletons and the bottom part was painted a rich plum that matched the tablecloth. Larger amber bulbs lit the room, but not well enough that if someone were to pick his pockets during the reading, he wouldn’t notice them. 

The sound of wind chimes came from the other side of the shop, and an older woman dressed in fabric that cascaded from her waist and wrists came out from behind her own curtain of beads.

“Welcome,” she said with a theatrical tone. “I assume you have an appointment.”

“Ah,” Wooseok said. “I booked us last week.”

“Good!” She said, delightedly, jangling the metallic beads hanging from her arms. “Let me guess, you must be Wooseok, and that makes you three Seungwoo, Hangyul, and Seungyoun.”

“Whoa, she’s good,” Hangyul said quietly.

“I gave her our names when I booked the reading,” Wooseok muttered, earning a snort from Seungyoun that made Seungwoo smirk himself.

Ignoring them, she gestured for the group to sit at a table in the order Wooseok gave her for the appointment. Seungwoo didn’t know if that actually made a difference or if it was so she wouldn’t mix their names up and lose some mystery points. 

Wooseok took the far left side, and the others followed. He was fine with being wedged between Wooseok and Hangyul because he was worried that if he sat next to Seungyoun, Seungyoun might recognize him as the sad loser who stood in the rain without his weather-sealed coat.

The fortune teller took out a silk satchel and dumped the contents onto the table. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought that they were tabletop RPG dice. Maybe they were mysterious RPG dice.

“Ahhhhh, yes, the spirits say that today’s group is a good group,” she said, sounding pleased. As she looked over the stones, Seungwoo got a glance of her face and thought she looked familiar for some reason under the low gaslight. Maybe that was just because of the eerie atmosphere. “You’re all going to have a happy and healthy month.”

She sucked her teeth. “Except for you, dear, I’m afraid you’ve come down with something.”

Not that it took a fortune teller to notice that something was wrong with Wooseok, but it was nice to have his theory validated.

“Am I  _ sick,”  _ Wooseok asked, his voice shaking.

“I think it’s just the flu,” she said, putting the dice back into the bag. She reached under the table and pulled out a box of blue surgical gloves. “Put these on, dear, I don’t want to cause an epidemic.”

Wooseok shyly put on a pair of gloves before he was allowed to touch the dice or anything else for that matter. The fortune teller advised him to shake the content of the bag before emptying it out into the center of the table. He did so revealing a variety of symbols that looked back up at them.

She closed her eyes and waved her hands over them, jingling her bracelets as she did. Seungwoo made a note that she didn’t do that when she read their group average.

“The spirits tell me that you’re going to experience a lot of changes in the near future,” she said, opening her eyes.

“Am I going to come in to a large inheritance?” Wooseok asked, eyes wide.

She shook her head. “No, it says you’re probably going to get fired.”

Hangyul let out a little gasp in shock. Wooseok nodded. “I probably had that coming. That’s why I was hoping for the inheritance.”

She looked at the stones again and nodded. “You’re going to have a lot of lovers. All of them will be taller than you.”

Seungwoo snorted. That wasn’t hard to figure out considering Wooseok was a big flirt and a peanut. Wooseok side eyed him for laughing.

To finish off her reading, she told Wooseok to take some vitamin C and wear a mask when he’s out and about. 

Seungwoo was next, and as interesting as this was, he couldn’t help but worry that Wooseok had fed her a bunch of information when he booked the appointment that would bleed into the reading. Not that he believed in fortune telling, exactly, but if she was too accurate, it would give him the heebie jeebies. 

He took the bag in his hand and gave it a good shake before pouring the contents onto the table. He thought he saw her smirk, but she was back into her routine of eye closing and jingling. 

“The spirits tell me that your luck has turned around thanks to the kindness you showed to a stranger in need,” she said. He couldn’t believe Wooseok had told her that he was unlucky, but there was no way Wooseok had told her about his coat. Maybe a lot of people did nice things enough that she could throw a fortune out and sometimes get it right. “It says here that because of your kindness, you have been rewarded with a great and endless love that will bring you a lifetime of happiness. You have already met him. He is someone close to you.”

Seungwoo’s eyed widened. He leaned and whispered, “It's not my coworker who keeps erasing my files is it?”

“No, dear, much closer.”

He eyed Wooseok and grimaced, and Wooseok elbowed him in the ribs. “Well it’s not me! It’s not right?”

The fortune teller closed her eyes and shook her head no. She rubbed her temple like she was getting a headache. She cleared her throat.

“According to the spirits, you met this person quite recently,” she said, a little irritated.

“I haven’t met anyone re– I will think about your, I mean, the spirits’ information, thank you,” he said, desperately hoping that his reading was over, feeling quite warm and uncomfortable under his sweater. 

She moved onto Hangyul but gave him a smile first that made him wonder if she could read minds.  _ That’s ridiculous.  _

Hangyul’s fortune said that he was going to get a promotion, which apparently coincided with Wooseok losing his job. Wooseok confirmed again that he had it coming, and Seungwoo made a note to ask what the hell it was he did at work that could cause Hangyul to take his job. But then it was Seungyoun’s fortune time, and for some reason, he was especially interested to hear what she had to say about him.

Seungyoun shook the bag and dropped the dice onto the table. She closed her eyes and jiggled.

“The spirits tell me that your luck is changing too,” she said. There was no way Wooseok could have told her anything about someone he didn’t even really know. “You will have some bad luck that will lead to your own happiness as a reward for helping another unluckier than you. If will be best for you to not resist the changes fate has in store.”

_ So did his umbrella break because of me? Oh god, what if he figures out it’s me? What if he figures out I’ve cursed him! I didn’t mean to! _

The fortune teller smiled to herself, and it was starting to creep him out. 

“You will find someone who cares about your heart as much as you care about his.”

It was awkwardly quiet after that considering that two of the customers at the table didn’t know him that well, and she had made a personal assumption of his life for no reason at all and not for the others.

The reading ended, and Wooseok paid so they could leave. None of them noticed the fortune teller wiggle her fingers towards the door as they walked out. Hangyul went out first followed by Wooseok, and for some dumb reason, Seungwoo and Seungyoun thought they were supposed to pass through it at the same time and got tangled up in the beads. The more they struggled, the more the beads seemed to wrap around them like vines with a mind of their own. Seungwoo was stuck with his chest pressed against the other who was squirming to get away. Seungyoun’s face was red as he laughed it off, but Seungwoo thought he was going to die. He craned his neck far back so that their noses wouldn’t clash, but it was quite uncomfortable.

Wooseok and Hangyul thought it was hilarious. 

“I’m sorry,” Seungwoo mumbled. 

“It’s fine,” Seungyoun assured him with an awkward smile. “You held me up yesterday, it’s the least I could do for you, I guess.”

Seungwoo was horrified to realize that he  _ had  _ recognized him, but what was more horrifying was that Wooseok had heard what he just said and Wooseok knew too much.

“Excuse me!” Seungwoo called out to the fortune teller who had taken her money to the back of the shop. “We need help!”

She stuck her head through her beads and smiled. “I’m sure if you stop struggling to get away from each other, the beads will let you go.”

Seungwoo blinked, flustered that she wasn’t going to cut them out or something.

“Here, hold still,” Wooseok said. “We’ll untangle you.”

Seungwoo and Seungyoun were wrapped together from their ankles to their shoulders, and Seungyoun was doing most of the supporting thanks to Seungwoo’s nervous squirming.

“Stop moving or you’ll fall over and hang yourself,” Wooseok scolded. 

Seungwoo felt Seungyoun’s loosened arms go around his waist to steady him as Wooseok and Hangyul’s fingers took turns loosening the beads that held them hostage. Neither could look at the other in their condition and both of their faces turned their own shades of red. 

He tried to relax because if he knocked them over, it was game over. He wrapped his arms around the other, refusing to look at him.

“There we go,” Hangyul said. “Almost done.”

Seungyoun let out a sigh of relief that tickled the side of Seungwoo’s neck causing him to giggle uncontrollably.

“I’m glad you’re entertained,” Wooseok grumbled as he pulled apart a web of beads that held their waists uncomfortably close together.

“Could you hurry up, please?” Seungwoo asked. 

“What, are you uncomfortable?” Seungyoun teased. Seungwoo gave him a look that suggested that Seungyoun had lost his mind. 

“Aren’t you?”

“I’m not the one who won’t stop wiggling.”

“It  _ tickles,”  _ Seungwoo insisted. 

“Guys,” Hangyul said.

“What?” They both said.

“You can let go now.”

They realized that even though they had been freed from the tangle of beads, they were still holding on to each other like two teenagers at an eighth grade dance. They pushed themselves apart and followed the other two out, silently swearing to never mention that ever again.

“Who’s hungry,” Seungyoun said once they got outside. He didn’t know him well, but Seungwoo could tell he was a mood maker. If he was a mood maker, he would definitely try to direct the conversation away after being embarrassed twice in a row, assuming that having himself made publicly vulnerable by a fortune teller in front of people he didn’t really know counted as the first embarrassment.

“Me,” Seungwoo blurted out. “I’m starving.”

“Me too,” Hangyul added.

“I know what we can eat!” Wooseok said with a cheerful smile.

The best part about hanging out with Hangyul and Seungyoun was that it was three to one, and since the three of them couldn’t handle spicy food, Wooseok’s chicken feet were out in favor of pizza which really was a win for the four of them if Wooseok would be reasonable. 

Pizza and beer could be spooky. Food didn’t have to look like it was sticking out of a grave to count for Wooseokween. At least that’s what the three of them told him after they ordered two for the table with enough beer to and bottles of soju to make him forget that he wanted chicken in the first place.

Seungwoo and Wooseok sat on one side of the table, and Hangyul and Seungyoun on the other. To Seungwoo’s dismay, that meant that every time he looked forward, he made eye contact with a guy who looked much better now that it wasn’t raining. So to avoid looking at him and risking his face turning an unsightly shade of red or falling into another fit of giggles for no reason, he craned his neck to watch Wooseok who for some reason thought he was supposed to have a drinking contest with Hangyul who was equally as determined to beat him.

Seungyoun couldn’t drink since he had driven him and Hangyul there and didn’t like the idea of a designated driver service, but Seungwoo couldn’t blame him. He wouldn’t want to compete in a drinking contest and then give the keys to his car to a stranger and hope he could make it home. This put Seungwoo in an interesting position. Should he join Wooseok and Hangyul to calm his nerves and hopefully force himself to forget the umbrella situation, or should he drink soda with his pizza in silent solidarity?

Wooseok tossed back two shots in a row, giving Seungwoo his answer. He was going to need to be sober to carry Wooseok home. He just knew it. 

As the drinking war went on, it was apparent that Wooseok was losing. 

“It’sh not fair! You’re cheating!” Wooseok said, waving a slice of pizza around aggressively.

“It’sh not my fault you’re  _ old,”  _ Hangyul said. 

Seungwoo sighed, the oldest of them all. Seungyoun covered up a laugh which prompted an exchange of ages. It turned out that Seungwoo was two years older than him, but they decided to be comfortable with each other if they both had to babysit — or as comfortable as they could be in their situation.

They spent the rest of their meal ignoring the two drunk babies who were now arguing because Hangyul was out to get Wooseok’s job and Seungwoo still did not know what Wooseok did that could have been so terrible. 

He learned that Seungyoun was probably the funniest person he had ever met but could switch the conversation on a dime to talk about anything either one of them was passionate about. He learned that they both played soccer and promised they would one day play each other to see who was better. Seungyoun knew Hangyul through college the same way that Seungwoo knew Wooseok. They both loved music almost as much as the other, and to his delight, both had an anti-chicken feet agenda. It was like talking to someone he had known for his whole life except he was unraveling pieces of this person like they were clues to a big, adorable puzzle.

He almost forgot that Wooseok and Hangyul were there bringing out the worst in each other but was snapped out of it the moment Wooseok announced that it was time to go to their third and final destination — a haunted house.

This was not going to go well. Wooseok and Hangyul were  _ too drunk  _ to handle zombies, ghosts, and masked killers. Seungwoo was too sober to handle Wooseok and Hangyul around them either. Wooseok was going to be scared out of his pants, and Hangyul was likely to roundhouse kick a poor werewolf just to assert his dominance as the alpha. He hoped that Seungyoun knew what he was in for, but he just seemed to be amused with the whole situation. At least someone was. 

They walked to the haunted house which was, he guessed, a small theater that had been converted into a spooky walkthrough in time for Halloween. The attendant at the door eyed Wooseok and Hangyul suspiciously even though they were doing their best impersonation of two sober people. 

Somehow they passed their first major hurdle, and entered a dark hall with flickering green neon lights and a menacing cackle that played over an overhead speaker. Surprisingly, this didn’t share the same milk curdling energy the fortune teller’s shop held. This was almost cute in comparison. Neither Wooseok nor Seungyoun shared the same opinion by the way they both hung close to the group, but Hangyul seemed fine.

The first actor to jump out from behind a black curtain was dressed in rags with gray makeup on his face like a zombie he guessed. He was startled, but he was more taken aback by Seungyoun who had  _ launched himself  _ across the hallway through a screaming Wooseok and an entertained Hangyul into Seungwoo’s arms like a frightened baby.

“Sorry,” he muttered as they walked through to the next room.

“It’s fine,” Seungwoo said, a little flustered. He had expected for there to be some screaming and jumping around, but he did not expect a  _ terrified  _ and  _ sober  _ Seungyoun to be clutching on to his arm so dramatically.  _ My umbrella hero is a scaredy cat.  _ Seungwoo smiled to himself. He could impress him with how brave he w–.

The scream that erupted from Seungwoo’s lungs turned into a high pitched squeal that rivaled a banshee’s as a woman in a long white gown with black hair over her face lept towards him and pulled at his sweater. She hissed, and he scrambled away, dragging a terrified Seungyoun with him.

This went on for several rooms with Seungwoo and Seungyoun alternating turns grabbing onto each other like useless scared babies who somehow bonded over pizza, drunk friends, and a shared fear of ghouls, ghosts, and goblins before realizing that at some point, they had lost Hangyul and Wooseok.

“Should we go back?” Seungyoun asked, wary of the previous rooms where masked killers certainly waited for them in the shadows.

They were answered by a frail scream that Seungwoo believed belonged to Wooseok followed by a loud low chuckle that he guessed belonged to Hangyul. He sighed. “I’ll go get them. Can you make it to the end?”

Seungyoun looked forward, his mouth twisting. “I think if I run…”

Seungwoo tried to hide the amused smile that tugged at his mouth.  _ Scared baby. _

He turned around to leave to find Wooseok with Seungyoun walking in the opposite direction when he heard a loud shriek behind him followed by a crash. 

He turned around in surprise to find Seungyoun on the floor with a very flustered actor trying to help him up.

Seungyoun groaned in pain before laughing hysterically at himself. 

“Are you ok?!” Seungwoo said, helping him up and patting the dust off of him.

“I’m fine,” he said. He waved the actor off who was probably terrified that they were going to get in trouble if he was hurt, but he just rubbed his wounded behind and let himself be held up by a very concerned Seungwoo.

“I’m fine,” he said, embarrassed but with smiling eyes. “Don’t tell Hangyul I slipped on some water after a ghost scared me.”

“They should really mop that up,” Seungwoo said. He took his phone out to find the water on the floor that had taken Seungyoun down.

“It’s fine,” he insisted. “I don’t think there was enough to hurt anyone.”

“It hurt you,” Seungwoo reminded him.

“I’m fine, really,” he said, and once they could not locate any water on the floor, they both decided to go back together to locate a very frightened and very inebriated Wooseok as if fate did not want them to go in separate directions.

They found Wooseok who had gotten confused at some point and had wandered back towards the beginning, and Hangyul wasn’t being helpful at all because he was too busy being entertained by Wooseok being scared by the same actor three times in a row. 

Seungwoo looped his arm through Wooseok’s, and Seungyoun took Wooseok’s other arm and Hangyul’s and together they made a train fit with a scared but determined conductor and a giggly drunk caboose. He wasn’t sure what that made Seungyoun and Wooseok, but Wooseok was probably at least the beverage car. Maybe Seungyoun was the link that held the cars together. This was Seungwoo’s bad haunted house coping method metaphor so that’s what he was going with.

After a dozen scares, they finally made it out of the house, and Seungwoo was exhausted. He was going to sleep all day Sunday, and there was nothing Wooseok could do about it. But then Wooseok sneezed, and it was an ominous sneeze.

“I need to sit down,” he said, finding a spot on the curb between two parked cars.

“Are you okay?” Seungwoo asked.

“I’m fine,” Wooseok said with glossy eyes that couldn’t focus and a dullness to his voice that suggested he was not fine at all. 

Seungwoo turned to Seungyoun and Hangyul who were watching with concern. “I need to take him home.”

Hangyul hiccuped. 

“Is he alright,” Seungyoun asked. 

“He was acting weird earlier. I think he’s getting sick. Sorry, guys.”

Seungwoo scooped Wooseok up and propped him against him. Wooseok frowned as he held slumped forward.

“Looks like the fortune teller was right about one thing,” Seungwoo said, tired. “I’ll see you guys next time.”

“Wait,” Seungyoun said before they could leave. “Let me drive you.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Seungwoo said. 

“He doesn’t need to take a bus or train like this,” he insisted. “And cabs are expensive.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s no problem. I’ll go get the car and bring it here so that he doesn’t have to walk to the garage.”

Seungyoun left with Hangyul who wasn’t as drunk as he was before, but he guessed that was what having a baby liver was like. It still functioned like it was supposed to.

Seungyoun was a nice guy, he thought as he sat Wooseok back down onto the curb. He didn’t really know them that well, and he could have just left with Hangyul and called it a night, but he didn’t. Or he could have just said he was going to get the car before bailing, but someone who holds his umbrella over a stranger wouldn’t do that. Probably. He thought not. If they weren’t back in thirty minutes, he was going to hail a cab and pretend like nothing happened.

Wooseok was swirling and groaning miserably. They should have never gone out. It didn’t help that he had downed enough soju to drown a small horse. Seungwoo reached up and touched his forehead. It was burning up, and he sighed. “Let’s just get you home, okay.”

Not long after, Wooseok was sitting with his eyes closed on Seungwoo’s shoulder with flushed cheeks, and Seungyoun’s car had pulled into a vacant space not far away. 

The two of them got Wooseok into the back seat, and Seungwoo climbed in with him. Hangyul peaked at them from the rearview mirror. “Is he okay?”

“I think so,” he said as Seungyoun pulled back onto the road. “I’ll take him to the hospital if he’s not better by this time tomorrow.”

“If you need a ride, I’m off tomorrow,” Seungyoun offered. “Hangyul, can you put my number in his phone for me?”

Seungwoo didn’t even get the chance to protest before the two in the front seat got to work. Hangyul reached back for Seungwoo’s phone, and he probably  _ could have  _ protested by not giving it to him, but he didn’t want to for some reason.

Moments later, Hangyul handed him his phone back with the new contact information of a person he never thought he’d ever see a second time.

“Can you read that back to me,” Seungyoun asked with a bit of humor to his voice. “I don’t trust Hangyul’s drunk hands. I’ve seen his tweets.”

“Hey!” Hangyul whined. “I put in the right number!”

Seungwoo read out Seungyoun’s number in his contact list with a quiver in his voice that he chalked up to exhaustion. 

“Good,” Seungyoun said, eyes on the road but Seungwoo could see the corners of his mouth turn up. “Now you don’t have an excuse to not text me when you need me.”

And for some reason that made Seungwoo’s stomach flip.

They made it to Wooseok’s apartment in one piece, ready to say their goodbyes, and Seungwoo was torn between wanting to get Wooseok inside as fast as possible and not wanting to leave. They had barely gotten to talk to each other except over dinner, and all he wanted was a chance to know more about him. If they could talk, he could find out what music he was listening to at the bus stop. That would be enough to satisfy his curiosity.

“Thanks for bringing us back,” Seungwoo said, a lingering sense of melancholy to his voice.

“Any time,” he said. “Can you get him inside by yourself?”

“Yeah, I should be fine.”

Before Seungwoo could get Wooseok out of the car so Seungyoun could drive away, Wooseok emptied out his stomach all over the backseat followed by a chorus of disgusted cries and a quiet apology from the vomiter. 

“Oh my god,” Seungwoo said.

Seungyoun shrieked at the mess and rightfully so.

“Let me clean it up,” Seungwoo insisted.

“I can get it when I get home,” Seungyoun said, covering his nose from the smell of churned pizza and beer. 

“You want it to dry?” Seungwoo asked, covering his own mouth. 

“Shit, you’re right,” he said. 

“Hangyul, can you get Wooseok inside?”

Hangyul who was looking away in disgust nodded enthusiastically, happy to get far away from the mess. 

Seungyoun and Seungwoo opened the back doors wide to let some of the smell out and fanned the air, both on the urge of puking themselves. Seungwoo’s cleaning supplies were at his place, and he wasn’t sure what Wooseok had upstairs, but Seungyoun had some stuff in his trunk that was just going to have to do.

“I wish we had gloves,” Seungwoo said, grimacing as he scrubbed away Wooseok’s mess.

“I’m going to keep gloves, masks, and spare bags in my car from now on,” Seungyoun said, stuffing soiled napkins into a fast food bag he had hidden in his bag seat.

“It’s a good thing you seem to be addicted to McDonalds,” Seungwoo pointed out, grabbing more napkins. 

“I’m not addicted to McDonalds,” he insisted. “I just like their breakfast sandwiches. Wait, we shouldn’t talk about food right now.”

“Good point,” Seungwoo said, spraying carpet cleaner into the floorboard. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know. Why were you standing in the rain out in the open.”

“Because there wasn’t any room under the bus stop,” he said, embarrassed. “Can’t believe you remember that.”

“I thought you were about to lose it,” he admitted. “It was hard to forget, because I was worried you were going to do something stupid. People do stupid things after they stand alone in the rain for too long. I figured if I could stop the rain, you would be okay.”

Seungwoo blinked at the change in atmosphere, but he returned to scrubbing feeling embarrassed. 

“I left my umbrella at home because the weather app on my phone is a liar, and I gave my coat to some old lady who was getting rained on.”

“Oh,” Seungyoun stopped. “Is that what the fortune teller was talking about?”

Seungwoo laughed awkwardly. “I guess, I mean if you believe in stuff like that.”

“I guess,” he laughed, and they finished cleaning up what they could in a parking garage. “That was weird, wasn’t it.”

“Yeah, I guess she’s just good at reading people,” Seungwoo said, not wanting to think about his reading and feeling too intrusive to think about Seungyoun’s.

Hangyul returned in time for Seungyoun to head back home. He offered to take Seungwoo home, but Seungwoo wanted to make sure that Wooseok was taken care of.

They said their goodbyes, and fate seemed satisfied enough to not cause any more accidents.


	2. Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungwoo takes care of a sick Wooseok with a surprise helper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your patience!!

Seungwoo found Wooseok on his couch with the same glazed over expression he had when they had escaped the haunted house in a human chain. His cheeks were flushed, and beads of sweat pooled on his forehead. His face looked like he was wearing someone else’s skin that didn’t quite fit right. It gave Seungwoo the creeps.

He didn’t know what he was supposed to do or how to take care of a sick friend, but he was the closest thing Wooseok had to family in the city so he had to somehow figure it out. The first thing he did was convince Wooseok to shower to wash the puke and the rest of the night off of him and change into his pajamas. After he was cleaned up and dressed, Seungwoo dropped Wooseok’s stained clothes into the washing machine for him. Since it looked like he was staying the night over to take care of him, they wouldn’t sour.

He tucked Wooseok into bed and plugged his phone in the charger before putting on a kid’s movie for him to sleep to. He told him to text him if he needed him, and that he would be sleeping on the couch. Before he left Wooseok to sleep the sickness off, he set a small garbage can with a new liner next to the bed to catch anything else he may have had to get out.

Seungwoo made it back into the living room, and his whole body ached. In the morning he would go to the pharmacy and get Wooseok some medicine if he still needed it. It was entirely possible that Wooseok was only sick from drinking, but just in case, Seungwoo stayed for the night anyway.

He forced himself to stay awake into the early hours of the morning so he could get Wooseok water if he needed it or bring him tissues or a damp cloth for his forehead, but at some point he passed out on the couch, unable to fight it anymore. 

He woke up to the sound of knocking on the door, which didn’t make sense because it wasn’t like Wooseok was expecting visitors.  _ Unless that sick little demon ordered food delivery. You’ve got to be kidding me. _

He stumbled in the door, patting his pockets for his wallet, but he must have taken it out at some point the night before. He opened the door ready to offer an apology in advance for making the driver wait so he could find it, but instead, it was Seungyoun in a giant floppy hoodie with a beanie pressed down on his head with a plastic sack in hand who was equally as surprised to see him there too.

“What are you doing here,” Seungwoo asked in lieu of a hello. “Sorry, that was rude, I’m just surprised.”

Seungyoun laughed awkwardly and scratched his head. “I came to drop off some medicine. Wooseok spent half the night texting Hangyul that there was no one in the world to take care of him, and that all of his friends had abandoned him to die.”

Seungwoo let out a sharp exhale causing the other to smile brightly. “I have been here the  _ whole  _ time.”

“I can see that,” he laughed. “Anyway, Hangyul sent me with these because he’s too hungover to come himself and Wooseok was getting on his nerves, and I’m supposed to tell him that he ‘is really going to take his job since he kept him up all night’.”

Seungwoo stepped aside to let him in. “Did Hangyul tell you what Wooseok did?”

“No idea,” he said. “It must have been pretty bad though for Hangyul to look like the good one.”

“You know honestly Wooseok is usually really prim and proper around people he doesn’t know well, but I think Hangyul brings the crazy out of him,” Seungwoo joked. “I wish I was that close to any of my coworkers.”

“You mean you’re not close to that guy who keeps deleting your work,” he teased.

“I think he’s my nemesis.”

“Oh, you’re going to have to fight him to the death then.”

“Will you throw a handkerchief at my feet,” Seungwoo said, not sure if he was making a cheesy joke or a terrible attempt at flirting. He was actually an amazing flirt most of the time, but for some reason he felt like he was in uncharted waters with Seungyoun like there was a reason to be the shy one.

“I shouldn’t be there,” Seungyoun said, his hand on his forehead dramatically. “You’d stare too much.”

“I would not!”

“You stared at me the whole time at the bus stop!”

“I was concerned about your airpods!”

“My what?”

Seungwoo panicked as he realized they had been shouting playfully at each other while Wooseok was in his room sleeping. He lowered his voice.

“I was worried your airpods would fall out into the storm drain,” he clarified calmly.

Seungyoun smirked. “Really?”

“Yes,” he said, and it was the truth. He just left out the part where he had planned to valiantly rescue them for him before asking him out to dinner at a place that did not include Hangyul or Wooseok.

“Then why were you trying to look at my phone,” Seungyoun squinted his eyes suspiciously.

“S–song recommendations,” he said, unable to explain away that one.

Seungyoun couldn’t help but laugh. “Why do I feel like you’re telling the truth?”

“Because I am,” he insisted. “I really was just trying to see what music you liked. I mean what music is good these days. It was a long wait.”

“I see,” he said with the biggest bunny smile that wasn’t fair at all. “Last night I thought you were different, but you’re just as goofy as they are.”

Seungwoo looked away and focused on sorting out the medicine. Most people thought he was just dark and scary half the time when they first met him, but really he was a loud playful baby and it was a part of him he worried annoyed people.

“It’s a good thing,” Seungyoun said, picking up on Seungwoo’s internal conflict. The medicine was finally sorted on the counter, and now Seungwoo just had to figure out which medicine helped with what. “Well, I was just going to drop this off and go, but now that I’m here, I can see that you haven’t eaten.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re in last night’s clothes, you’re half asleep, and you have the face of someone who hasn’t eaten yet,” he said plainly.

Seungwoo poked at his own cheeks with his fingertips. “What’s wrong with my face?”

“Nothing, it’s nice,” Seungyoun said, his pink ears contrasting against the black beanie. “Anyways, Wooseok won’t notice if a few eggs go missing right?”

“Probably not,” Seungwoo said, still stunned by the sudden compliment. “What are you doing?”

“Hmmm,” he said, thinking. “I was going to cook something, but half of this stuff is expired. Do you think Wooseok just accidentally gave himself food poisoning?”

“That’s highly likely,” he sighed. “I don’t buy groceries either often.”

“We’re going to have to change that,” Seungyoun muttered and shook himself. “I don’t know why I said that. You don’t know me.”

“It’s been a weird weekend,” Seungwoo said so he wouldn’t feel like he was saying anything strange. “I’m Seungwoo.”

Seungyoun laughed. “What?”

“Now you know me,” he said with a smile that barely showed his teeth. 

“Nice to meet you, Seungwoo,” he relaxed. “Ahhh, this is a shame though. What are we going to do?”

Before Seungwoo could assure him that he wasn’t hungry and that it was really okay, Seungyoun closed the refrigerator door and nodded with his own quiet resolve.

“I’ll be right back,” he said. 

As he left the apartment, a part of Seungwoo worried that he would fall down the stairs, but why would he?  _ I think I’m just tired. _ Even though the thought didn’t make any sense, he was still anxious. His stomach churned, worried Seungyoun would have some sort of freak accident after he left, but twenty minutes later there was another knock on the door.

He opened the door and sighed in relief at the sight of him unscathed with a big bag from what looked like McDonalds and a carrier with two coffees.

“Breakfast sandwiches?” Seungwoo asked, surprised.

“Are you going to let me in,” he asked, shaking the bag with a mischievous smile, dodging Seungwoo’s attempt to affirm his suspicions that Seungyoun was indeed addicted to McDonalds.

They spread the food out on the table, careful not to wake Wooseok up with any suspicious rustling. It was a shame to not share their breakfast with him in his own apartment, but this wasn’t about him even if it was more food than they could possibly eat.

“I didn’t know what you liked so I got everything,” Seungyoun said looking over the ridiculous amount of food he bought. 

“You got everything,” Seungwoo repeated, amazed.

“We don’t have to eat it all,” Seungyoun said softly, and Seungwoo thought he was especially adorable like someone who had done something terribly impulsive and had to live with what they had done. He wondered if he was the impulsive type even though he had seemed like the responsible one the night before. He was cuter than Wooseok or anyone else he had ever met, and Seungwoo had to resist the urge to squeeze one of his cheeks. Like a little soft McDonalds addicted baby. “What?”

Seungwoo wiped the smile off of his face. “Nothing, I was just thinking.”

“About?”

“A guy who claims to not have a problem but shows up with a month’s worth of McDonalds.”

Seungyoun picked up one of the sandwiches wrapped in yellow paper and handed it to him. “Taste this and tell me if it’s not the greatest breakfast food in the whole world.”

Seungwoo took the sandwich from him, their fingers grazing just enough that he felt a jolt go through him that he hoped wasn’t visible from the outside. 

He unwrapped it, pushing down any urge his body had to show that he was flustered once again. It was an egg McMuffin with cheese and bacon, and it was still warm. He wasn’t really a fan of these, but how could he ever refuse such an eager and hopeful face. He bit into it and was surprised to find that either he was hopelessly affected by the person standing in front of him or it was actually one of the best sandwiches he had ever had in his life.

“Oh my god,” he said, his mouth full and covered in crumbs. “This is amazing.”

Seungyoun smiled, quite pleased with himself.

“I’m going to eat this every morning before work,” he said.

“You’re going to get heart disease,” Seungyoun laughed.

“I don’t care,” he said, wiping away his crumbs. “This is delicious.”

They sat at the table with their spread of breakfast food so that from behind they wouldn’t look like two starved, desperate scavengers. Not that anyone was likely to see them except for Wooseok who was still stuck in bed, but they were  _ civilized.  _ They could eat while sitting down. With napkins.

“Oh look,” Seungyoun said, pulling off the plastic covering of a breakfast plate. “They’ve got pancakes.”

He lifted up something that vaguely resembled a pancake with a plastic fork, but the skewered part disintegrated causing the pancake to flop back down sadly onto the tray. Seungyoun frowned, disappointed. “Kind of.”

“Maybe if you pour the syrup all over it and mush it around, you can make some sort of pudding,” Seungwoo suggested, perfectly content with his unfloppy McMuffin.

“Baby food,” Seungyoun mumbled in agreement. He set the tray of failed pancakes to the side and grabbed his own sandwich. “Now, I don’t recommend eating these every day for your arteries, but I’ve never once had a bad day after eating one.”

“Is that a ritual?” Seungwoo teased.

“You laugh now, but you’re about to have the best day of your life,” Seungyoun said before taking a big bite.

“Am I?” he asked, causing the other to choke. Seungwoo kicked himself for that one, but Seungyoun shook his head that he was fine. 

“I guess I set that up,” Seungyoun said. “But you never know, taking care of sick people could be your new calling, Florence Nightingale.”

“Florence Nightingale?” Seungwoo said, moving on to his next breakfast sandwich. (He couldn’t let them go to waste). “What, did you just take a foreign history class?”

Seungyoun wrinkled his nose. “I happen to read a lot, I’ll have you know.”

Seungwoo took the opportunity to get to know more about his umbrella hero who maybe could soon be called his new friend. “Oh? What do you like to read?”

Seungyoun took a sip of his coffee before answering. “Anything that I can learn something. General information, history, science, philosophy, poetry, it doesn’t matter. What about you?”

“Not as much as I should,” he admitted, ashamed that he hadn’t picked up a book since college.

“We’re constantly bombarded with so much information these days, that even if you don’t think you’re reading, you’re absorbing so much more information and ideas than people ever thought possible.”

Seungwoo was surprised. “That was deep.”

“I’m a deep person,” he smiled brightly and foolishly, and it made Seungwoo’s heart do unexplainable things.

They finished their breakfast, and Seungwoo left to check on Wooseok who hadn’t made a sound all morning even with the guest. He put on a mask and sat on the edge of the bed, placing a hand on Wooseok’s sweaty forehead.

“Hey, buddy, how you feeling,” he said quietly to wake him.

“Never better,” Wooseok grumbled. 

“Your fever feels like it’s gotten better,” Seungwoo observed. “I don’t think we’ll have to go to the hospital today.”

“That’s good,” Wooseok said, quietly. “Why do you smell like McDonalds?”

Seungwoo’s guilty heart raced knowing they didn’t save him anything except for the mushy pancakes. “That’s just because you’re sick.”

“Oh ok,” he said, closing his eyes, prompting Seungwoo to tiptoe out of the room. “Hey, Seungwoo?”

“Hmm?” he said, startled, sure he had been caught. 

“Tell Seungyoun I said hey,” Wooseok said before falling back asleep.

Seungwoo winced and carefully closed the door behind him, vowing to make sure they were quiet from then on so that they didn’t wake him again. 

When he returned, Seungyoun had finished cleaning up their breakfast mess and was wiping down the table with a damp paper towel to get up any stray crumbs and grease.

“How’s he doing,” Seungyoun asked.

“He’s still sick,” he said. “He said hi.”

Seungyoun winced in the same way that Seungwoo had realizing they had been noisy. “Oops.”

“It’s okay, he’s out already.”

Seungyoun’s shoulders dropped in relief. He looked around and sighed. “I guess I should get going then.”

“You don’t have to. Go, I mean,” Seungwoo blurted out like if he left, he’d never see him again except for the occasional get together with Hangyul, maybe, if that, considering they had never hung out before, and the thought of that made him unbelievably sad. But just as soon as he had the thought, he realized that Seungyoun had only been there as a favor to someone else and had no real reason to stay. “Unless you have things you’d rather be doing. Of course you would. Why wouldn’t you? You look like you’re going somewhere.”

Seungyoun smiled. “Did you just have that conversation all by yourself?”

“What conversation?”

He laughed. “The one I wasn’t invited to.”

Seungwoo turned away shyly, not used to someone paying  _ that  _ much attention or at least having the guts to point it out.

“I just realized that you were probably busy, is all,” he said, playing it cool. “I don’t want you to think you can’t be here or anything. It’s just going to be me watching tv… or maybe playing Mario Kart all day.”

“You’ve got Mario Kart?” Seungyoun perked up like an intrigued meerkat. “Or Wooseok, I mean.”

“Yeah, we both do,” he said, feeling a surge of hope that he had reeled him in with the enticing promise of a tactical game of Mario Kart.

Seungyoun twisted his mouth causing little dimples to form on his chin. “You can’t really play that by yourself, can you.”

Seungwoo shook his head. “It’s not the same with just the NPC’s.”

“You might get bored.”

“I probably won’t make it through more than one game.”

“It would be a shame to spend all that time setting it up just to play one round alone.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

Seungyoun’s eyes shifted from the tv to Seungwoo who knew he had him, and now all Seungwoo had left was to go in for the kill. “You’d only be doing me a favor if you stayed a while.”

And that was all the convincing Seungyoun needed to stay even if they both were conspiring to spend at least the morning in someone else's apartment.

So that he wouldn’t slack on his caregiver duties, Seungwoo went back into the kitchen to get Wooseok some medicine for his body aches and for his nausea that Seungyoun had so kindly purchased for him. While he took care of Wooseok, Seungyoun said he would set up the game.

Wooseok was in his bed in the dark, surrounded by dirty tissues. He felt bad for waking him a second time and cursed himself for not giving him any medicine earlier.

“Wooseokie,” Seungwoo said cutely earning an annoyed grumble. 

“What?” He mumbled.

“Seungyoun sent you some medicine to take from Hangyul,” Seungwoo said. “You know, since no one was here to take care of you.”

Wooseok opened one of his eyes and looked up, caught. 

“Even though I stayed up all night doing your laundry and switching out your water bottle and bringing you water to flush your mouth out with,” he said a cute, irritated way.

“Don’t be mean, I’m sick,” Wooseok said, sitting up. He took both pills in one swallow, chasing them with the water Seungwoo had brought for him earlier. “Are you leaving?”

“No, why would I,” he said.

“I don’t know,” Wooseok said before collapsing back onto his pillow. “Maybe you’d rather hang out with your new best friend, umbrella boy.”

Seungwoo patted his head. “You’ll always be my best friend. Go to sleep.”

He put on another movie for Wooseok to drown out any sound they might make before leaving him alone again. After washing any germs off himself, he joined Seungyoun in the living room who had successfully set everything up and found a comfortable spot on the couch which lead to a new problem that he had not anticipated: where was he supposed to sit?

The obvious answer was that he should sit on the floor considering there wasn’t anywhere else he was able to sit in the room unless he played from the kitchen, but then he wouldn’t be able to see very well.

“Whatcha doin’?” Seungyoun asked, watching him. “Is something wrong?”

It hadn’t occurred to him that he had been standing there rearranging Wooseok’s living room to fit a kitchen chair for so long. It also hadn’t occurred to him to just next to Seungyoun like a normal human being who wasn’t unreasonably nervous around someone  _ he  _ had invited to play with him.

“I’m just tired,” he said, carefully moving towards the couch like the living room was rigged with mines. Seungyoun shifted over, giving him more space — sensing the new tension — which put Seungwoo between him and Wooseok. “Are we ready?”

“Yeah, I muted the tv so that it wouldn’t bother him,” he said.

“Good idea.”

They picked their characters before starting. Seungyoun insisted on being Daisy which freed up Toad for him, and as the flag dropped, Seungwoo wondered if he thought he had any intentions of going easy on him because he did not. But it was Seungyoun who threw the first shell that sent him spinning off the map, and then it was war. 

Seungyoun was now in third, and Seungwoo was struggling to catch up to a bot Mario who was very much in the way.

“I thought you’d be good at this,” Seungyoun quietly teased.

Seungwoo grit his teeth, determined to win — or at least keep him from finishing in first place — but his rival was having way too much fun to be afraid of a little old blue shell.

“I’ll get you,” Seungwoo mumbled.

“We’ll see about that.”

Seungwoo launched the shell, ready to take out Daisy who was creeping towards first. He held his breath as he felt a surge of adrenaline as it sped forward at the speed of light… right into Waluigi’s kart.

“I think you missed me,” Seungyoun teased, his tone high and playful and just irritating enough that if Seungwoo knew him better, he’d make him pay for it.

The first game ended with Seungwoo’s humiliating defeat which could never be repeated because this was  _ his  _ game. This was an invasion from an outside force who had tricked him into letting his guard down. Seungyoun was his trojan horse, and he would not be fooled again.

Seungyoun on the other hand was having a blast. “This is fun! I’ve only gotten to play a couple of times before.”

“A couple of times?” Seungwoo eyed him, suspicious of his sudden claim. “I don’t know if I believe you.”

“It’s true,” he insisted. “Maybe you’re just bad.”

Seungwoo elbowed him sharply, and then they became the kind of friends who had known each other since they were children.

It was a Mario Kart bloodbath of insult laced whispers and some shameless cheating by the way of leaning over the other to block their view or by openly snatching away the other’s controller. Neither noticed that they had somehow moved close enough to each other that they were aggressively playing shoulder to shoulder. Close enough for Seungwoo to smell fresh laundry and pine and close enough for Seungyoun to smell that he hadn’t had a chance to shower since the morning before Wooseok’s Big Spooky Adventure if he was the kind of person to point that sort of thing out which luckily for Seungwoo, he wasn’t.

The rest of the morning flew by in a breeze with Seungwoo’s dignity on the line. He won a few games, but Seungyoun was too powerful. He was going to have to spend his nights and weekends training to be able to defeat him. But then it was close to noon, and he needed to check on Wooseok. 

_ Really  _ not wanting to wake him again, he cracked the door just enough to slip in and see that Wooseok was passed out and the movie had ended. He switched it out for something new and slipped out again. 

“He’s still asleep,” he whispered, returning to his spot on the couch.

“I hope he feels better soon,” Seungyoun said quietly with a frown. 

“Me too. I don’t know what to do with a sick person,” he admitted.

“Did you call his parents?”

Seungwoo shook his head. “They live in the country and wouldn’t be able to come here because of work so they’d just worry. I will if it gets bad, though.”

Seungyoun nodded. “That makes sense. You two are really close, aren’t you?”

“Yeah we are,” he smiled.

“Are you two…” Seungyoun pointed back and forth between him and the bedroom where Wooseok was sleeping with an inquisitive expression.

Seungwoo grimaced and shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

“So you’re not seeing anyone then?” he asked, his voice an octave higher than necessary.

“Nope,” Seungwoo laughed, pretending he wasn’t embarrassed by the sudden question.

“Good,” Seungyoun shifted in his seat.

“Good?”

“Yeah, I would hate for you to spend the whole day with me if you had someone else you would rather spend it with.”

“There’s no one I would ra–,” Seungwoo stopped himself, and a smile crept up on the other’s face. “I mean, you’re going to stay here all day?”

“Well eventually you’re going to crash, and someone is going to have to take care of Wooseok. I happen to be very good at taking care of sick people so if it’s okay with you, I’m going to stay here for the rest of the day.”

Seungwoo smiled. “I wouldn’t dream of having you leave.”

“Plus, for some reason I have this new phobia that if I leave too soon, I’m going to fall down the stairs,” he admitted, staring off into space.

Seungwoo scratched his head. “There’s a lot of that going around, huh.”

Seungyoun shook himself. “Do you wanna take a break from this for a while? I can sit on the floor if you want to take a nap.”

“I’m fine right now,” he said. “I’m not that tired yet, but if you need a break from competing with me, I understand.”

“From beating you, maybe,” Seungyoun muttered, handing him the remote.

“I was letting you win,” he grumbled.

“Oh? Is that why you were pouting and throwing yourself on top of me? So I could win?”

“There was a bug,” he lied, eyes glued to the tv. “You should be thanking me.”

“Oh, should I?” he laughed. “Thank you.”

There was a certain sincerity to it that threw him off. His new umbrella friend was an excellent bluffer, and it felt like a new challenge.

“I will gladly throw myself on top of you,” he said pointedly, earning himself a startled cough. “To defeat you at Mario Kart.”

“I thought you said there was a bug,” Seungyoun said, his face still slightly pink.

“There was, but I mean for next time, of course.”

“So you admit you can’t beat me without cheating?”

Seungwoo exhaled sharply.

Before he could defend himself, Wooseok emerged from his patient cave and shuffled across the living room towards the kitchen.

“What are you doing?” Seungwoo scolded, snapped back to reality.

“It’s my apartment,” Wooseok said.

“I mean what are you doing out of bed?”

“It was Seungyoun’s magic Tylenol,” Wooseok said through a stuffy nose. “I’m cured.”

He made his way to the kitchen to find something to eat. Seungwoo jumped up, almost knocking Seungyoun over. “Let me get you something so you don’t get germs everywhere. Go sit down.”

Wooseok grumbled and shuffled to the couch on the farthest side away from Seungyoun because of his germs. 

“Wait, you can’t cook,” Seungyoun said, getting up. “Let me do it.”

“I can cook!”

“Please, Mr. I Don’t Buy Groceries,” he said. “Go take care of him. I’ve got this.”

Seungwoo was conflicted because on one hand, he was right, but on the other, they had already established that Wooseok didn’t have anything in his fridge to work with. But he firmly insisted that he could handle it so Seungwoo left him to it.

He sat next to Wooseok who was barely keeping his eyes open to watch tv.

“I swear this whole place smells like McDonalds,” Wooseok groaned. 

“How can you smell anything right now?”

“It’s like someone brought in fifty breakfast sandwiches,” he said.

Seungwoo’s stomach dropped. He put his hand on Wooseok’s forehead again to distract him. “Your fever seems to have broken.”

“Yay,” Wooseok cheered weakly. “But if we’re going to talk about strange smells, you should probably take a bath.”

Seungwoo’s eyes widened. “Why?”

“You smell like a dumpster.”

“It’s not that bad,” Seungyoun said from the kitchen which was like the worst thing that could have ever happened to him. “If you want to shower, I have a bag of clean gym clothes in my car. We look about the same size.”

“That’s okay–,” he started before Wooseok interrupted him.

“I think you are too,” Wooseok glanced over. “I think we would all feel better if Seungwoo showered.”

“Dude, shut up,” he mumbled.

“Do you want cute umbrella guy to think you smell like sweat, pizza, and old vomit?” Wooseok whispered sharply.

Seungwoo looked over at Seungyoun in surprise who hadn’t heard them and was busy making rice for the patient. “You don’t mind do you?” 

“No, I’m not going to the gym today anymore,” he called back. “Go ahead and shower, and I’ll go get them for you.”

“If you’re sure,” Seungwoo said, standing up cautiously.

“Unless you just don’t like to bathe,” he teased.

“I’m going, I’m going.”

Seungwoo hurried off to Wooseok’s bathroom and thought he would die of humiliation. Did he really smell that bad? Maybe Wooseok’s nose was broken… maybe Wooseok was just smelling his own puke breath.  _ It’s not that bad? Oh my god, I do stink. _

He stepped under the hot water and scrubbed every inch of his body like he was in a sauna. Twice. He couldn’t believe this at all. It wasn’t like he was expected to be well groomed in his current situation, but to be told he stank by his friend and the guy that he  _ something?  _ Worst day of his life.

He heard the door open followed by a weak, phlegmy cough and the sound of a heavy bag being dropped on the counter before it closed again. He supposed that meant that Wooseok had dropped off the clothes for him to change into. 

He finished showering and stole some of his skin care supplies from the drawer to make it up to his face for the impromptu scrub down. They probably wouldn’t mind if he took a minute to dry his hair first either, and once he did, he let his soft fluffy hair hang over his eyes the way he wore it at home.

Opening the gym bag made him nervous for some reason. This was Seungyoun’s personal belongings he was rifling through after all! He found a t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts folded neatly on top, and he almost felt too guilty to take them out. He picked his own clothes up and sniffed them just in case, and Wooseok was right, they did smell like garbage. He grimaced.  _ Gross. _

He sucked it up and took out Seungyoun’s clothes, but for some reason he didn’t fight the urge to put them to his own face and breathe them in before putting them on. It was fine since no one was there to notice him do it, but they smelled just like him — clean and natural like an orchard. He shook himself. He was being ridiculous.

He changed and emerged from his own chamber of steam to find a very grumpy Wooseok with a bowl of rice. 

“I could have made this,” Wooseok said to Seungyoun.

“You need something bland for your stomach,” he insisted. “And it’s not my fault rice was the only thing here that isn’t expired.”

“That’s not true!” Wooseok said, looking back at the kitchen. “There were cookies. Cookies are bland.”

“Eat your rice,” Seungwoo said, feeling refreshed after the shower that he didn’t realize he needed. “I’ll take you to get chicken feet when you’re better.”

Wooseok squinted. “Really?”

Seungwoo nodded. “But you can’t complain about either of your caregivers.”

“Oh I have two now?” He eyed them.

“Seungwoo said you’re too much to handle for him by himself,” Seungyoun said, probably still thinking about how he had kept both Hangyul and, by extension, him up all night.

Wooseok looked at Seungwoo in horror expecting him to defend him, but he just shook his head. “It’s true. You need both of us in your condition.”

Wooseok pouted, but he smiled to himself, realizing he was going to get extra babied — or ganged up on. Seungwoo decided that that would depend entirely on his own behavior.

“I’m going to change your sheets out while you eat,” he said.

“Why?” Wooseok asked.

“Because you’ll feel better if you don’t sleep in your own snot and puke residue,” he said, leaving, and Seungyoun followed behind.

“I’ll help you,” he offered.

“You can’t leave me here!” Wooseok whined before breaking out into a coughing fit.

“Eat your rice!” they said in unison.

Seungwoo stripped the bed while Seungyoun gathered all of the stray used tissues between gags. The two of them really weren’t fit to be caregivers, but they were all Wooseok had at the moment.

It took some concentrated drawer searching to find Wooseok’s clean linens, but between the two of them, they figured it out. Seungyoun helped him put the new sheets on before Seungwoo dumped the gross germy ones in the washing machine.

They returned to find Wooseok on the couch with a bag of chips he stole from his own kitchen the moment he was left unsupervised watching tv as if it was his own apartment.

He was obviously feeling better so Seungwoo wasn’t going to tell him to go back to bed, but now his one on one time with umbrella guy had come to an end unexpectedly, and he still had yet to find out what music he had been listening to at the bus stop. That was a shame.

He scooted Wooseok over and sat between them for the sole purpose of blocking the germs, of course. He had no ulterior motives at all. Wooseok sneezed.  _ See. _

Seungyoun trotted back to his bedroom and returned with a box of tissues that Wooseok accepted with a grubby “thank you” that sounded more like a Dan Yoo who Seungwoo was sure was probably a nice guy.

The rest of the day went pretty smoothly. Wooseok was belligerent and grumpy, but he was otherwise fine. Seungwoo hung up his damp washed sheets on an indoor dryer and helped him take his medicine before leaving for the day.

It was late in the afternoon, and the clear sky had taken on an orange glow that made him feel sleepy. Seungyoun was right, he was close to crashing, and he planned to collapse on his bed as soon as he got home.

“Thanks for staying to help,” Seungwoo said before they parted ways. “And for bringing his medicine. And for bringing me food. And clothes. And cooking for Wooseok. Wow, did I do anything today?”

They both laughed. 

“It was fun,” he said with a bright but tired smile. “We should do it more often.”

“Here’s to hoping Wooseok’s immune system collapses,” Seungwoo sighed.

Seungyoun laughed loudly, his first normal decibel sound for the day, shocking Seungwoo with the powerful volume. “That’s not what I meant!”

Seungwoo playfully looked away in despair. “Grandfather is frail these days.”

“His poor bones,” Seungyoun agreed. 

To beat the sunset, they wrapped up making fun of Wooseok while he wasn’t around and said their goodbyes. 

“Well this is it in then,” Seungwoo said bitterly. 

“Yeah, I hope he feels better soon.”

“Me too,” he said with a weak smile.

“Text me if you need me again.”

Seungwoo had forgotten he had his number. How was he supposed to find a reason to need him? Push Wooseok down the stairs? That might work…

He nodded and felt a dull ache knowing he never would be able to find a reason to contact him again but accepted that he had been given this one extra day.

“Drive safe,” he said, and as soon as he did, thunder cracked right above their heads making them both jump. 

“What the–!”

“HOW?!” Seungwoo shouted as a torrent of rain dropped like a blanket on top of them.

They ran under the apartment building’s awning together to escape the typhoon that seemed to have come out from nowhere. 

“Damn it,” Seungwoo said, frustrated that he would have to walk home in a storm.

“Let me drive you home so you don’t get sick,” Seungyoun shouted over the rain.

“What?” Seungwoo shouted back, unable to hear him.

“LET ME TAKE YOU HOME!”

Seungwoo blinked and pulled himself together before Seungyoun realized he was flustered. “YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THAT.”

“SHUT UP.”

They ran down the street to find Seungyoun’s car that not only had been puked in only a day before, but now was about to have two very soaked occupants. He was grateful that his car had seat warmers even if they had used up all of his hoarded napkins already and couldn’t properly dry off.

“Thank you,” he said. “I don’t live far away.”

“It’s no problem,” Seungyoun said cheerfully as if he had needed an excuse to not say goodbye either, but he was sure he was just imagining that part.

Seungwoo gave him the address, and they set off which prompted a question he hadn’t thought of before.

“Wait, if you drive, why were you taking the bus the other day?”

“Ah, my car was in the shop,” he explained. “I was having engine problems I guess because of a streak of bad luck and was on my way to pick it up.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Seungwoo said wondering what it would be like to have a car and how much trouble they must have been even if they kept their owners out of the rain — most of the time. “I’m glad I got to meet you even though it was because your car was in the shop.”

He cringed at himself, but Seungyoun didn’t seem to mind at all. “Me too! I hope you don’t get pushed out of anymore bus stops without an umbrella.”

“Thanks,” he laughed. Maybe he would have to start carrying his umbrella everywhere just in case to uphold his wish.

At home, he sat alone on his bed with his phone, staring at a contact listing he wished he could send a message to.

_ I hope you got home safe. _

_ Can’t believe you got me addicted to McDonalds too. _

_ We should have a rematch soon. _

_ What are you doing? _

_ What music were you listening to? _

Every message he typed was immediately delered and replaced with another he could never bring himself to send, resigning himself to being a coward. 

That was just how things had to end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just really wanted some fucking mcdonalds ok lol


	3. Lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungwoo and Seungyoun are meant to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long!!!! It was SO LONG I can’t believe this!!

Seungwoo spent his entire week pretending like having Seungyoun’s number in his phone didn’t physically torment him. He couldn’t focus, he couldn’t work, and he couldn’t think straight. He almost gave in a couple of times while he was sitting alone at home with the screen staring back at him. He even tried to think of an excuse to contact him. There was no reason to call, and what was he supposed to say in a text message? Hey? How lame would that have been? What if Seungyoun didn’t want to be bothered with being told hello. He probably had better things to do, and Seungwoo immediately rejected Wooseok’s suggestion of sending a meme because apparently that’s how everyone made friends these days in the real world, but Seungwoo was, as the kids said, chickenshit. There wasn’t a single cat picture in the world that could make him brave enough to contact Seungyoun again, and he knew that meant that if he never saw him again, it would he his own fault.

He wanted to see him, though. There were a lot of things he wanted to do, and all of them required being able to see him again. But he was going to have to just get over it because it simply wasn’t going to happen, and sitting around upset about it wasn’t going to get his work done so while he was at work he shoved it in his desk drawer and pretended like it wasn’t there.

By the end of the week, he almost didn’t care anymore. Then, only his stomach was in knots, he couldn’t sleep, and he had put heart emojis next to Seungyoun’s name in his phone while he was waiting for water to boil, but other than that, he was fine.

Friday came, and it had been exactly one week since he met the person he was sure he was supposed to spend the rest of life with. He knew he was just being dramatic, but things were different. He just couldn’t explain how. 

He woke up too early, but he had time to walk to McDonalds before heading to the bus stop. He wasn’t sure why he was going there in the first place because he didn’t really like it if he was being honest except for when he ate it with Seungyoun, and at that time it was the best breakfast he had ever had. That’s how he knew he had been starving and tired, but he went back anyway because he had time to kill and an addict to miss.

Ordering felt unnatural and clumsy like he wasn’t supposed to be there, but it was just a McMuffin. No one cared if he stuttered when he ordered or if he forgot to get a coffee. He was sure he was fine, but even holding the paper bag left a faint ache in his chest so he discarded it immediately.

The breakfast sandwich paper wrapping was covered in grease that dripped from his fingertips, and he had tossed the napkins with the paper bag. He made a mental note to not wipe his hands on his shirt in case he left two hand–shaped little men at his sides.

The scent hit him first — melted salted butter and cheap processed sliced cheese that could probably survive an apocalypse. He wasn’t sure how this would mix with his anxious, heartsick stomach, but it couldn’t work in his favor. He brought it to his mouth, and as he took a bite of the waterlogged, reheated egg hidden in the center of the sandwich, he had a thought.  _ Yep, this is terrible. _ But he ate it anyway, because he wasn’t the type of person to waste food, and a little voice in the back of his head told him that he was going to have the best day of his life.

If Seungwoo kept a log of the worst possible days he could have ever had at work, that Friday would have been at the top of the list. 

He didn’t hate Yohan, but the fact that he was yelled at in the face by a manager who spat when he talked for thirty minutes because of a mistake his office mate had made and refused to fess up to made him want to take the screws out of his chair.

Yohan muttered a quiet apology and swore to never do it again after thanking him for taking the heat for him, but what was done was done. His day had been ruined, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

He grabbed his phone and hid in a bathroom stall and willed himself not to cry. He refused to cry at work, but he was stressed, his emotions were flipped upside down, he had been screamed at for something that wasn’t his fault, and the person he wanted to talk to most in the world right at that moment was someone he couldn't bring himself to contact. So instead he opened his text thread with Wooseok and asked him if they could hang out that night, just the two of them. No big plans, no schemes, no parties. Just Wooseok’s promised chicken feet and enough beer and soju to make him forget his own name. He didn’t want to be alone, but he didn’t want to be around anyone he would have to put on a show for either. Wooseok he could be honest with even when he didn’t want to be honest with himself.

The night after work they met up and took the bus downtown together. Seungwoo had changed into some comfortable black workout pants and a striped sweater, and Wooseok had toned it down compared to the last time with just a yellow sweater and his beret. He looked like he attended a Parisian boarding school under the care of his teacher, Miss Clavel. 

“You should call him,” Wooseok said as Seungwoo stared longingly out the window.

“Call who?” He asked in a daze.

“Your boyfriend,” Wooseok sighed. “Who else?”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“He could be if you called him.”

Seungwoo frowned and focused on the passing signs instead of the conversation. In a matter of seconds they passed a shoe store, an English school, three street vendors, and a store that vaguely reminded him of the fortune teller’s shop. It was amazing how many businesses could be squeezed into a single block, and those were only the ones he had a chance to notice. He would have to pay attention more as he traveled from then on.

Wooseok elbowed him to get his attention. 

“He doesn’t even like me,” Seungwoo said, rubbing his tarnished ribs.

“Why else would he have wasted his whole Sunday taking care of  _ me,  _ who he does not personally know, I should add, if he didn’t like you?”

“Because he’s a nice person?” he blew him off. “Maybe he likes you.”

“Sure, he spent all day with you when you smelled like a wet dumpster because he likes me.”

Seungwoo let out a long sigh. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“You’re miserable,” Wooseok said. “Just text him and see how it goes.”

“It’s just a crush. Everyone gets like this sometimes.”

Wooseok frowned, unsatisfied but otherwise dropping it. “Whatever you say.”

There first stop turned out to be their only stop because neither one of them had the energy to spend the night out on the town. Wooseok wasn’t sick anymore, but he still hadn’t recovered enough to bargain for a Wooseok’s Big Spooky Adventure sequel. Seungwoo was too busy being beat down and lonely to want to exert any physical effort so they decided to spend the evening at a chicken restaurant that served spicy chicken feet for Wooseok, normal chicken for Seungwoo, and enough beer to take his mind off of things.

“So what happened at work that got you all upset?” Wooseok asked before biting into a talon.

“You know that Yohan kid?” Seungwoo said. “He did something stupid and ordered like 2000 samples of a thing instead of 200, but for some reason my account was attached to the invoice and not his so I got screamed at, and they threatened to fire me. I had to get on the phone with a guy in China to fix it, and do you know who doesn’t speak Chinese? Me. We had to negotiate in English, and my resume may say I’m proficient, but that is clearly not the case.”

Wooseok’s jaw dropped. “So what did you do?”

“I spent the whole day on the phone babbling in English until they refunded us for the 1800 extra samples that were going to come out of my next seven paychecks.”

He shook his head, and Seungwoo turned up his beer bottle like there was money at the bottom.

“Do you want me to fight him?”

Seungwoo snorted, almost choking on his drink. “He’s a Taekwondo prodigy.”

“So? I can take him.”

“He’s like a foot taller than you.”

“Is he single?”

Seungwoo furrowed his brow.

_ “A one track mind,”  _ he mumbled. “I’ll be sure to ask next time he breaks something at work.”

“He must have strong hands then,” Wooseok mused, propped forward on the table, his voice dreamy and wistful. He was unbelievable.

Both of them took turns talking about what bothered them between making their way through stacks of chicken and glasses of beer that tasted milder as the night went on. For his problems, Wooseok was tired of being single, ready to fight Seungwoo’s coworker (who he thought he had unresolved sexual tension with for some reason since they were now declared enemies), and he also had beef with Hangyul for stealing his job.

“What did you even do?” Seungwoo asked, beginning to sway. 

“I crashed my boss’s car into the side of a parking garage,” he said plainly in the way a normal person would say that they went out to check their mail or that they spent the night on youtube.

“You did  _ what?” _

“I  _ told him  _ that I don’t have a driver's license,” Wooseok said. “It’s not my fault if he didn’t listen.”

“So you did get fired?”

“Not exactly,” he said, shaking a gloved hand. “I’ve been demoted to assistant number two, and now Hangyul is the golden boy. I don’t like that very much. He’s too young to be higher up than me. He still has to learn things like respect and obedience.”

“I think he and Yohan are the same age,” Seungwoo mused earning a raised brow from Wooseok that shifted his glasses. “Maybe I should introduce them to each other instead.”

“Why would you say something so cruel,” Wooseok whined.

“Maybe you should try dating Hangyul and see how that goes.”

Wooseok scowled. “Stop it or I’ll tell Hangyul to give me Seungyoun’s number so I can date him instead.”

Seungwoo laughed and was onto his next beer. He wasn’t at all threatened by Wooseok with his funny hat and his lemon yellow sweater.

“How could you say such a thing,” Seungwoo sobbed into the crook of his elbow, drunk off his ass and heartbroken that Wooseok would dare steal his soulmate away from him.

“I was just kidding,” Wooseok said, dragging him out of the restaurant. “Come on, you big baby.”

Seungwoo pouted and plopped down on the curb, refusing to go any further with his treacherous best friend. “Say you won’t do it.”

“I won’t date him, I promise!” Wooseok shouted, just as drunk as he was. “Come on, we gotta go before the buszh comes!”

He folded his arms and refused to move. “I don’t want to take the buzsh. It stinks.”

“Then let’s take a taxshi,” Wooseok said, plopping down beside him. “Give me your phone.”

“Why do you need my phone,” Seungwoo said, leaning against his friend for support.

“Because mine died while we were going through all the snow filters,” he said, exasperated.

Seungwoo giggled. “Oh yeah, I forgot. Here you go.”

Wooseok took his phone and stumbled off to somewhere less noisy than the side of the road to make the call. When he returned, Seungwoo closed his eyes and rested his head on his shoulder.

“Thank you for being my friend,” he said.

“Stop, people will think you’re serious,” Wooseok teased, shy about the sudden affection.

“I am serious,” Seungwoo said, slightly slurring. “If we weren’t friends, then that would suck.”

Wooseok laughed. “Well said.”

Seungwoo didn’t feel himself fall asleep, dropping the whole weight of himself onto poor Wooseok who was barely able to hold him up until it was time to go. He was definitely going to receive a bill from Wooseok’s favorite massage therapist for this. The nap sobered him up a bit, but it took a moment to feel the hands under his arms lifting him up off the ground.

“Up you go,” the lifter said, straining to get him to his feet.

Seungwoo blinked his blurry eyes open and started giggling. “You look like Seungyoun.”

“That is Seungyoun,” Wooseok said as he cracked his neck from holding it over for too long, his buzz already wearing off.

Seungwoo gasped. “What are you doing here?”

“Wooseok called me,” he said, steadying Seungwoo before dropping his hands.

“I told you to call a taxi,” he said, ready to kill his best friend. 

_ “No,  _ I said I was going to call a taxi,” Wooseok said. “I lied.”

“I can’t believe you would bother him like this!”

“I can’t believe you would chicken out like this!”

“I did not chicken out!”

“Guys,” Seungyoun shouted firmly enough to startle them both. “Can we finish this in the car? I didn’t start the meter..”

“Sorry,” they both muttered as they followed him to his car. 

Seungwoo went to follow Wooseok into the backseat, but Wooseok slammed the door closed and pushed down the lock, forcing him to go to the front. It was petty and childish, he thought. 

As they drove away, Seungwoo felt even more embarrassed than he already was. “I’m sorry he called you.”

“I’m glad he did,” Seungyoun said, his eyes on the road. “You two are too hammered to make it home by yourselves. It’s late, and you’ll get mugged sleeping on the side of the road.”

“See, I did good,” Wooseok said, proud of himself from the backseat. Seungwoo frowned.

“I thought it was you,” he said, sounding hurt. “I was surprised.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I know you said to call if I needed you, and I wasn’t going to unless it was an emergency.”

“I know what I said,” Seungyoun said. “I came didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Seungwoo mumbled, and all he wanted to do was go home and hide and flush his phone down the toilet. 

It was quiet for a while, and Wooseok was too busy playing on his phone that was obviously not dead to hear them talk.

After a long pause, Seungyoun said, “I’m not an uber.”

“I know, that’s why I’m sorry–,” he started to apologize before Seungyoun continued.

“I just expected that you would have taken the hint, but I guess I was misreading the signals.”

“What signals?” he asked, surprised.

“I told you he liked you,” Wooseok grumbled. 

“Play your game,” Seungwoo scolded before hearing Wooseok curse at him under his breath. He turned his focus back on Seungyoun who looked different than he did the week before. “You look tired.”

“It’s been a bad week,” he said. “I haven’t been sleeping.”

“Any reason why?”

“You don’t have to be my therapist,” he said with a big smile that wasn’t fooling anyone.

“I want to know,” Seungwoo said, no longer slurring. “What’s going on?”

Seungyoun’s eyes went to his rear view mirror to glance at Wooseok before shaking his head. Seungwoo took the hint that he didn’t want to talk about it in front of him and respected his privacy.

“I wanted to,” he said quietly. “I kept looking for a reason, but none of them seemed important enough to bother you.”

“Bother me,” he repeated, thinking. “Why would you think it would bother me?”

“Because you’re so interesting and mysterious, and you probably have a lot to do and a lot of people to do things with,” Seungwoo said, too tired to filter what he was saying. “And you don’t even know me.”

“I would know you a lot better if you texted me,” he pointed out. “But it’s okay if you didn’t want to. I can accept rejection. I knew what I was risking.”

“I’m not rejecting you,” he said, his eyes wide. “Really! How could I do that?”

“It’s true! He’s just an idiot!” Wooseok chimed in earning a smirk from Seungyoun.

“Then let me try again,” he said. “Text me if you need anything.”

“Yes, I got that the first time”

_ “Anything,”  _ he stressed. 

Seungwoo nodded silently.

“Oh, for fucks sake,” Wooseok said, leaning forward between them. “Seungyoun are you busy tomorrow?”

“No–.”

“Seungwoo, you don’t have a life.”

“Hey!”

“How about you both meet up around six tomorrow night,” Wooseok said before a hiccup. “Since Seungyoun can drive, you can pick Seungwoo up and go out on a date like normal people.”

“That’s–,” Seungwoo started.

“Alright,” Seungyoun said. “But only if Seungwoo texts me tomorrow so I know he didn’t forget this happened because I cannot have a repeat of that phone call incident we just had. It’s not good for my heart.”

“Your heart would be fine if you stopped eating McDonald’s,” Seungwoo mumbled.

“My heart would be fine if you could  _ pick up your phone,”  _ he said, and Seungwoo realized he had been waiting all week for him. Seungwoo was an idiot. He was an absolute idiot.

Wooseok reached into his wallet and grabbed a handful of bills and threw them into the front seat. “Your dinner is on me.”

“I think you helped enough, thank you,” Seungwoo said, picking up the discarded money to give back to him.

“I could make reservations for you,” Wooseok said, pulling up a search on his phone.

Seungyoun looked back at him through his mirror. “No, no, I’m taking care of that. Thank you, though.”

Wooseok hiccupped. “You’re welcome!”

“Where are we going?” Seungwoo asked, feeling giddy about his potential date.

“A place with the best chef in town.”

Seungyoun dropped Wooseok off first because his house was closest but not before Wooseok got his number so that he could be a better middleman if Seungwoo blew it.

Before saying goodbye to Seungwoo, he made sure that he knew that if he didn’t want to go out with him, it was fine, and he would understand and that there was absolutely no pressure. Seungwoo wanted to say something cool that would knock his socks off, but he just waved his arms around while loudly insisting that he wanted to go out with him which probably seemed more graceful inside his head than it actually was.

The next morning Seungwoo woke up surprisingly without a hangover, but he was dehydrated so he had to take care of that first. It took him all but thirty minutes after waking up to remember what happened the night before, and his heart dropped. First, he was going to have to kill Wooseok. Second, he had a date with umbrella guy. Seungyoun drove all the way downtown just to fetch him off the sidewalk, and it was his third heroic act in just a week. He had made a fool of himself for getting that drunk around him, but he still wanted to go out with him? Had Seungwoo hallucinated that? Was it real at all? What if he had spent an hour hitting on some poor taxi driver instead? No, it had to be him. He pulled out his phone to look at his recent calls, and Seungyoun’s name was there. He totally had been there.

But now Seungwoo had to text him or it would really be over. This was his only chance at a second chance, and he would not lose it. He opened the chat window and typed the boldest “hey” the world had ever seen. But right after he sent it, he realized how creepy that looked so he attached the first cat photo he saw in his camera roll.

He watched the screen, anxiously waiting for a reply, but it was entirely possible that Seungyoun was still asleep or that Seungwoo had imagined their whole date conversation in the car, and his heart raced. A few moments later he saw that Seungyoun was typing something and panicked.  _ What have I done? _

He locked his phone so he wouldn’t see it and jumped up and paced until his phone vibrated. He read the push notification on the screen from Seungyoun that said “so you do know how to use a phone.”

Seungwoo was ready to cringe at himself, but he had a date. It was real. It was happening. 

_ Oh no, it’s happening! _

Seungwoo jumped up and ran to his closet in a rush, but then he had another thought. He ran back to the living room, his socks making him slide on the floor, almost causing a major couch related accident. He grabbed his phone and texted Wooseok telling him that he needed help getting ready even though his date was like eight hours away, and then he texted Seungyoun again because he  _ could.  _ He could text him as much as he wanted, and no one could stop him. 

“Why did you ask me to come over if you were going to just ignore me the whole time,” Wooseok whined a couple hours later as he was sprawled out on the couch bored out of his mind.

Seungwoo, who was too busy staring at his phone and smiling like an idiot to hear him, ignored his question.

“Give me your card. I wanna order something for lunch,” Wooseok said, knowing that Seungwoo didn’t keep human food or decent snacks in his apartment.

“My wallet’s on the counter,” he said idly, engrossed in his other conversation.

“I’m about to make your whole house smell like chicken feet,” Wooseok grumbled. 

“Wait!” Seungwoo shouted, jumping up to snatch his card away. “You can’t do that! What if he comes over?”

“You know I have the number memorized, right? I only asked to be polite,” he said, and then he smiled mischievously. “Wait. You’re expecting him to come over?”

_ “No,”  _ Seungwoo said, his face turning a new shade of red. Wooseok raised his eyebrow. “I’m not!”

“Then it shouldn’t be a problem,” he baited him.

“Maybe I don’t want you to make  _ me  _ smell like chicken feet.”

Wooseok rolled his eyes. “Fine. What do you want?”

“I’m not hungry. Get what you want.”

Wooseok squinted.

_ “Anything else.” _

“Fine,” he grumbled.

Not long after that, Wooseok was on the floor with a bag of Subway sandwiches and was no longer complaining about being ignored, but he did make a point to say that for some reason the sandwiches left a bad taste in his mouth and that he would never eat there again. 

Seungwoo finally put his phone down long enough to pay attention to him, but he was absolutely buzzing. He was practically vibrating at an atomic level, and he still couldn’t wipe the smile off of his face. 

“You’re pathetic, you know that,” Wooseok said, disposing of his terrible, vile Subway sandwich.

“I know,” he said with a grin from ear to ear, not ashamed of himself at all. 

“You know how much better your week would have been if you just listened to me?”

“Shhh,” he said. “You don’t get to credit for this.”

“I get to take credit for all of it! Now we gotta make you pass for a civilized human being before we run out of time.”

“There’s like five hours left…”

“Did I stutter?” Wooseok blinked. “Go take a shower while I go tear your closet apart.”

“Don’t make too big of a mess,” Seungwoo said as he was ushered off into the bathroom. “And don’t break anything!”

After Seungwoo finished showering, he took care of his skin so that he wouldn't look like a sad orange peel, and he shaved off the stubble that had popped up around his mouth while he slept. He emerged from the bathroom to all of his clothes in a big pile on his bed and Wooseok digging through them, tossing out what he didn’t like like he was burrowing for the winter.

“I said don’t make a mess!” He whined as he picked up his clothes off the ground.

“There’s no time,” Wooseok said, ignoring him. “Quick, try this on.”

For several hours, Wooseok played dress up with Seungwoo, and he was starting to think that it was entirely for his benefit alone. Not only was it stressing him out, but now he was also concerned that everything he owned was ugly. He shook himself. He was not about to let a man with a beret collection tell him his pants didn’t fit his butt right.

By the end of it, they both agreed on a pair of black pants (that did fit properly) and a white button up shirt that Wooseok insisted he opened up at the top to show off his tattoos and his pristine collarbones. He didn’t even know that he had pristine collarbones. He added a simple black belt and a shiny pair of black shoes that he only wore for special occasions.

“I look like I’m about to give a Ted Talk,” he grumbled, looking at himself in the mirror.

“That’s just because we haven’t done your hair and makeup,” Wooseok insisted.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, who said anything about makeup?”

“Just a little bit! Just to cover your dark circles and to make your eyes pop,” he made sure to add popping gestures to emphasize his point.

“I don’t want him to think I’m stuck up,” he said.

“Please, those aren’t even his real eyebrows,” Wooseok brushed him off. “I promise you’re not going to look like a diva when I’m done with you.”

“Alright, but no eyeliner!” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, just sit still while I work my magic,” he said looking over him in a way that made Seungwoo feel tiny and insecure.

Wooseok scratched his chin and hummed.

“What is it?”

“First, we have to do something about your hair.”

“What’s wrong with my hair?”

“You look like a coconut.”

“Can you try saying something nice? I’m going to show up to my own date in a bad mood.”

“A very cute and manly coconut,” Wooseok patted his head.

“Maybe don’t say anything nice anymore,” he cringed, and Wooseok went back to what he was doing. He kept his hair simple by just parting it down the middle so he could  _ see,  _ and after several rounds of negotiations, Seungwoo gave in and let him put makeup on him, but it didn’t look nearly as dramatic as he had worried it would. Maybe Wooseok knew a thing or two, but he would never admit that out loud. 

But before he knew it, it was time, and Seungyoun texted him that he was on his way. He hurried downstairs to meet him, and Wooseok promised to sneak out after they left so he wouldn’t know that Seungwoo had to have help getting dressed for their date. 

He saw the car pull up, and he waved, almost so excited he couldn’t stand it. He quickly got in and texted a quick “ok” to Wooseok so he could leave too.

“Wow, you look,” Seungyoun made some clumsy hand gestures while he tried to reactivate his brain. “Oh my god.”

Seungwoo pretended like his whole life hadn’t been made and returned the compliment. “You clean up nice, too.”

“Hey, I rushed to come get you because I was worried,” he teased. “I didn’t have time to do anything nice.”

“No, I just meant that you look great now, but you always look great,” Seungwoo waved his hands. “I’m just glad I didn’t puke in your car.”

“You and me both,” he sighed playfully. 

A shape that looked unmistakably like a Wooseok crossed brazenly in front of Seungyoun’s car, and Seungwoo prayed he didn’t see him.

“Hey, is that Wooseok?”

“What? No…”

He rolled his window down and called out to him, ignoring him. “Wooseok!”

Wooseok jumped and looked over his shoulder and saw them before turning back and running away.

“Hey! Come back!” Seungyoun shouted. 

“It probably wasn’t him,” Seungwoo lied, looking off to the side and winced as Wooseok ran off into the distance.

“He help you get ready?”

“Maybe,” Seungwoo said, humiliated.

“You know I would have taken him back home,” Seungyoun said, surprisingly amused by the whole situation.

“You’re not an uber,” Seungwoo said, recalling what he said the night before.

“That’s true, I’m not,” he smiled as he drove off, and they both pretended like they didn’t see Wooseok still running down the street towards his own apartment building.

Once that was over with, it finally dawned on Seungwoo where he was, what he was doing, and who he was doing it with. He was actually going out with the only person he ever wanted to go out with again, and he told himself that that wasn’t a weird thought to have as long as no one else heard it. He thought about how they first met at a bus stop of all places, met again with mutual friends, then again because of a favor, and then one more time because of Wooseok’s meddling. All of that lead to a date with someone who might be his boyfriend one day, and he told himself then he would show him what an awesome boyfriend he could be if it ever came to that. He really hoped it would. 

“So, where are we going,” Seungwoo asked, hoping to keep himself from daydreaming about their future together too much.

Seungyoun sucked his teeth. “That’s a secret.”

“Why?” Seungwoo laughed. 

“Because it’s more fun for me that way,” he insisted.

“You’re not just hyping up dinner and a movie,” he said, suspicious.

Seungyoun shook his head. “Not in the way you’re thinking.”

“Hmmm,” he thought. “You said we’re going to see the best chef in town.”

“So you do remember last night,” he teased. “I’m surprised.”

“I remember most of it,” Seungwoo laughed. “Especially the part where you got all sulky.”

Seungyoun’s jaw dropped. “I was not sulky! You’re just making things up!”

“You were! It was cute,” he said, earning a flash of an embarrassed smile. He noticed only one of Seungyoun’s hands was on the steering wheel and the other rested casually on the console, and he wondered if it would be okay to hold it. He wanted to, and apparently Seungyoun liked him. He decided that maybe it was alright to take a risk, and if he looked stupid, the worst thing Seungyoun would do was tease him. He wasn’t the type of person to make someone feel too stupid. 

Seungwoo slid his finger under the other’s hand. It was warm and small against his, and he waited for a response. The driver, still very much focused on the road, shifted in his seat nervously and adjusted his hand to make it easier for Seungwoo to intertwine their fingers, his heart pounding in his own chest.

They rode quietly for a while, both terribly nervous and trying to look like they weren’t. They were so nervous, infact, that Seungyoun forgot to turn any music on as they drove so the only sounds were their own panicked breathing, the snorts from hearing the other, and the traffic outside.

“So where are we going,” he broke the silence, his voice seeming to boom inside the car.

_ “I can’t tell you,”  _ Seungyoun sang, and even though he was playing around, Seungwoo wanted to hear his voice again. He wanted to hear him talk, and sing, and whisper, and shout, and whatever else he wanted to do. Naturally he had to keep him talking. “Don’t worry we’re almost there.”

Seungwoo got an idea and let go of his hand to grab his phone, excited, but he didn’t notice Seungyoun’s bottom lip protrude in a pout. 

“What are you doing?”

“Cheating,” Seungwoo said. He pulled up the map on his phone and searched for nearby restaurants. “I don’t see any popular restaurants around here. Is it somewhere unknown? Like a hidden gem or something?”

Seungyoun smirked. “Clever! But no!”

Seungwoo frowned, frustrated that he couldn’t figure it out.

Seungyoun reached across the seat, taking his hand back. “Do you trust me?”

His voice caught in his throat. “Yes.”

“Good,” he smiled. “You’re going to love it.”

Seungwoo let out a deep sigh as they stood in the parking lot of a grocery store, and Seungyoun couldn’t have been more thrilled by his reaction.

“What is this?” He asked.

“I told you we’re going to have to do something about your grocery situation! And I happen to be an excellent cook,” Seungyoun smiled.

“Oh, so  _ you’re  _ the best chef in town,” he teased, energized by how excited Seungyoun was to buy groceries — a task that he himself found to be a nuisance.

Seungyoun took his hand to drag him in, and Seungwoo let himself be dragged. He didn’t care what they did as long as they did it together.

“Is your next date a doctor’s appointment,” Seungwoo teased.

“I’ll let you plan the next one,” he said, and the promise of a second date together took him to the clouds. How would he ever top going to the grocery store?

They stepped in, and the blinding fluorescent lights hit him in the face, knocking him straight out of his euphoric spell. He dreaded going to the grocery store, but Seungyoun looked so excited that he didn’t want to complain about it even if the mere thought of wandering up and down the aisles at a snail’s pace exhausted him.

“Do you like pasta?” Seungyoun asked.

“Yeah, why?” 

“That’s the best thing I can cook.”

They headed towards the meat market, and Seungwoo was stressed because he knew that if he bought a lot of it, it would spoil before he had the chance to cook it. But fortunately for him, Seungyoun didn’t plan on stocking up on anything that could spoil on him.

“How do you feel about seafood?” he asked, eyeing all the fresh options at the counter. 

“I’m fine with it,” Seungwoo said, and Seungyoun decided he would make a seafood pasta dish. He had the person behind the counter fill a bag with clams, and he also asked for shrimp and sea scallops. “Ooh, fancy.”

Seungyoun grinned. “Best chef in town.”

“What’s next?” Seungwoo asked, taking control of the cart as if he loved buying groceries. It was his new favorite activity.

Seungyoun pointed to the back of the store, and Seungwoo pushed towards it. “We need wine.”

“Wine?” He raised his brow. 

“It’ll make the pasta taste better,” he said, simply. 

“And you need two bottles for that?” He said, suspicious as Seungyoun placed the second in the cart. 

“Mind your business,” he grumbled, but Seungwoo felt like teasing him.

“Are you going to get the shrimp drunk before you cook them?”

“You laugh now, but you’re about to have the best meal of your life,” Seungyoun said.

“That’s a really big promise,” he teased.

“And was I not right last time?”

“You said I stunk!”

“Wooseok said you stunk,” he clarified, moving on to the next section. “I said it was fine.”

After a long pause, Seungwoo said, “maybe.”

“Hmm?”

“Maybe you were right,” he said. “But then I had McDonalds yesterday, and I had a really bad day so I think you just got lucky.”

Seungyoun’s eyebrows raised. “You? McDonalds?”

“I was in a mood,” he said, avoiding eye contact.

“Why did you have a bad day,” he asked as he put more food things in the cart without mentioning what they were. The only item Seungwoo was confident about was the olive oil because the bottle was big and green. The mood shifted, and he cursed himself for mentioning it.

“It’s not a big deal,” he shook it off. “It’s good now!”

“Is it? I was wondering last night what was wrong because you don’t look like you’re the kind of person who drinks that much, to be honest,” he said. 

“I’m not, really,” Seungwoo laughed. “It was just a shit day at work. We all have those.”

Seungyoun nodded, satisfied with the answer but ultimately dropping it without bringing up the fact that Seungwoo was crying on Wooseok’s shoulder when he picked him up off the ground or that Seungwoo had collapsed into his arms the moment he saw his face, a complete mess, and mumbled that everything was horrible and how much he missed him. Or that if Seungwoo hadn’t calmed down after getting in the car, he had planned to stay with him all night to make sure he was okay. If Seungwoo didn’t remember, Seungyoun wasn’t the type of person to bring it up.

“Okay, so,” Seungyoun started, clapping his hands together and shifting the conversation. “I could make pasta from scratch, but there’s a big possibility that it would look like PlayDoh.”

“Naturally,” Seungwoo nodded.

“And I could buy it fresh, but I don’t know if this store’s quality is up to my standards.”

“Of course,” Seungwoo nodded. “So you’re going to buy the boxed kind.”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page,” he nodded back before dropping a box of spaghetti into the bottom of the shopping cart. “While we’re in this section, we should get you some shelf stable stuff so that you can make something that isn’t ramen.”

He added a couple other boxes of pasta of different shapes and styles and a few jarred sauces against Seungwoo’s many protests.

“Obviously I’m not trying to get you addicted to spaghetti the way I got you hooked on McDonalds, but this is pretty much effortless. Also, it will never taste as good as mine so I don’t want you to think that you can ever eat pasta the same way ever again after tonight.”

Seungwoo laughed loudly and brightly which was the exact reaction Seungyoun had waited all night for. He normally only released his windshield wiper laugh around people he was comfortable with, but he guessed that Seungyoun had slid his way into that category a long time ago

“You’re confident,” Seungwoo teased.

“Mhm,” he smiled, still filling the cart with things Seungwoo would have never bought for himself. “You’re going to be sorry that you didn’t believe me!”

“Am I?”

“You laugh now, but you’re going to be calling me over everyday to cook for you! You wait!”

Seungwoo sucked his teeth. “I don’t know about that…”

Seungyoun turned back and gave him a look, waiting for an explanation.

“What if I want something other than pasta for once?” He smiled and pushed the cart away quickly, almost in a trot.

“I can cook more than pasta!” He shouted after him, his voice a high and threatened pitch. “Try me! I’ll cook anything you want!”

“I think we need cookies,” Seungwoo mused, ignoring his desperate attempt to convince him that he could cook. He placed a big box in the cart. “Unless you were going to try to make dessert.”

“I can’t bake,” he admitted. “I tried once. It didn’t go too well.”

“Can’t bake… can’t make homemade noodles… can’t handle spicy food,” Seungwoo teased.

“You’re talking a lot of shit for someone who doesn’t know what the inside of a grocery store looks like,” he fired back, and Seungwoo wanted to drop everything and wrap his arms around him. He thought he was especially adorable when he defended himself and pointed fingers. But he didn’t because they were in public and his one moment of contact had been shocking enough. 

“What?” Seungyoun asked.

Seungwoo shook himself. “Just thinking. Come on, let’s go before the fish goes bad.”

“Good idea.”

Their next step was the frozen food section which came as a surprise. 

“Now, we’re not going to go crazy because this is probably a new concept for you, but you can buy things already made and just heat them up,” Seungyoun explained.

Seungwoo gasped. “Unbelievable.”

“I know right,” he smiled. “I like to keep frozen dumplings because they remind me of my mom, but that’s just me.”

“I like dumplings,” Seungwoo muttered, and he wondered why he never kept them in his freezer for himself.

Seungyoun seemed energized by having his suggestion accepted and power walked down the aisle, and Seungwoo was afraid. He was very afraid. He may have gone a little overboard, and he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to squeeze everything into his little freezer, but he appreciated the effort.

“We have to stop by and get some produce first, and then you’re free,” he said finally, and Seungwoo was relieved. He picked up some garlic and some little bulb things like looked like pink onions since Seungwoo didn’t have them at home, and they checked out.

As the scanned beeped, Seungwoo couldn’t help but think of all the food he could order at the same cost without any effort involved on his part and sighed. 

Seungyoun ignored his pouting. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about, I’m the one cooking all of this.”

“Only the first meal,” he whined.

“We’ll see about that,” he said, and Seungwoo awakened. Again, he had been an idiot, and he immediately perked up. 

As they finished, he swooped in and swiped his card earning a very frustrated sound between a hack and a grunt. “Excuse you!”

“You are  _ not  _ buying my groceries,” Seungwoo said. “That’s just not happening. You can cook whatever you want, but I’ve got this.”

Seungyoun realized that Seungwoo finally caught onto all of his hints and gave a satisfied smile. “It took you long enough.”

“You know if you flirted like a normal person, maybe I would have texted you before it came to this,” he teased, and Seungyoun elbowed him.

“You’re terrible, you know that,” he said, hiding his delight. “Crybaby.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing!”

They packed all of the food into Seungyoun’s car and turned to go back to Seungwoo’s apartment. The sun had set, and Seungwoo felt like he was in a movie with the relaxing coffee shop music Seungyoun liked to play as he drove. If he closed his eyes he could drift off to sleep.

“Is the music bothering you?”

“No! I like it,” he said. “I’ve been wondering what kind of music you listen to.”

“Hmmm,” he said, thinking. “I like a bit of everything, but this is what I’m into these days.”

“It’s really nice,” he said honestly.

“Thank you,” Seungyoun smiled like he had been worried about how Seungwoo would perceive his music tastes. “What do you like?”

“Lately it’s whatever music gives me energy,” he said. “I like rap music.”

Seungyoun snorted.

“What?” Seungwoo asked.

“I just can’t picture you rapping along to anything,” he said, laughing.

“I happen to be very good at rapping! And singing!” 

“Put on what you like, and show me then,” he baited.

“I can’t do that yet, it’s too embarrassing, but one day you’ll wish you never asked.”

“Oh, will I?” Seungyoun laughed, his eyes in little moons that Seungwoo loved to stare at. He was going to have to find ways to make him laugh more often. “I’m looking forward to it.”

They weren’t dating. Not yet at least. It was just a first date and a chance to be alone without Hangyul or Wooseok nearby, but for some reason Seungwoo felt like they had been together for their entire lives. He was still shy, and they still had to get to know each other, but having Seungyoun around felt like having an old friend in his life who he could trust with anything. He wondered if he was just the kind of person who had that effect on people.

“You’re staring again,” Seungyoun said quietly, barely audible over the music.

“Sorry,” he blinked and turned away.

“It doesn’t bother me,” he said. “But you do that whenever you have a conversation that I’m not invited to.”

“I was just thinking about how I like having you around.”

“Oh, I didn’t think you were actually going to say so,” he smiled.

“Does that bother you?”

He pressed his lips tightly together and shook his head in thought but with a gentle expression that showed his sincerity. “No, it just makes me wish you’d say what you’re thinking more often.”

Seungwoo hummed in agreement and wondered if he could be that open with someone and share his thoughts with him easily.

“You don’t have to all the time,” Seungyoun added once Seungwoo became lost in his own thoughts again. “Just when you want to.”

“I’ll try to,” he said.

Seungwoo lead Seungyoun to his apartment for the first time with a bundle of groceries in their arms, and he was so nervous he almost dropped the seafood and the boxed pasta in the hallway before reaching the door. What were they supposed to do? Eat spaghetti and talk about philosophy? Every first date  _ he  _ had ever planned involved enough activities that one would not find the time to be nervous, but there he was shaking in his boots because Seungyoun didn’t want to sit quietly in a dark room for two hours. Maybe he still did, and that was a thought that hadn’t occurred to Seungwoo until he was trying to get his door open, but his hands were shaking so much, he couldn’t enter his own door code.

“You good?” Seungyoun asked, noticing that he had to try three or four times to get it right. “You live here right?”

“Blood sugar,” Seungwoo blurted out. “I forgot to eat today.”

“You  _ forgot?”  _ he sighed. “This is worse than I thought.”

Seungwoo steadied his hand and finally punched in the right code, and it beeped cheerfully. He took it as a sign that he didn’t have to respond to that remark.

He turned on the light and gasped. All of his clothes were thrown across the living room, and he was sure this was direct sabotage from the inside. He was going to kill Wooseok. No wonder he ran when Seungyoun had called out to him, he was  _ guilty.  _

Seungwoo set his bundle down and ran towards the mess. “It’s never like this!”

Seungyoun scooped up a pile of sweatpants into his arms and set them on the couch carefully.

“No! Don’t clean! I’m sorry!”

Seungyoun burst into a fit of laughter seeing him run around all erratic over his surprise clothes explosion.

“It’s not usually like this! I’m very clean!” He shouted, running back and forth from the mess in the living room to his bedroom where he was dumping it all onto a pile on his bed.

Seungyoun lifted a university sweatshirt off of his television and handed it to him. “You have a strange friendship.”

_ “I know _ ,” Seungwoo said, tired. “He’s  _ evil _ .”

Seungyoun snorted. “But he’s so tiny.”

“That’s what makes him evil! He’s part demon!”

“Why did he do this?” He said, amused.

“Because I left him alone like an idiot, and I should have known better,” he sighed. “Why can’t he just not trash my apartment?”

“At least it was just your own clothes,” he pointed out. “So it’s still kind of clean, and now everything just smells like fabric softener.”

Seungwoo sniffed the air. “You think so?”

He nodded. “It’s like someone lit one of those clean linen scented candles. But I should probably get cooking before you die of starvation. Try not to burn any more calories until I’m finished.”

“Okay,” Seungwoo laughed. 

Seungyoun headed to the kitchen and put up the groceries while Seungwoo finished cleaning up after Wooseok’s tantrum. He had a feeling he did this to him in case Seungyoun came over so he could ask him about it and tease him, but he wasn’t going to let him win. He’d lie if he had to. Say he didn’t even notice the mess. Say that they had gone out for the night, and he got home too late to care. 

While he was busy plotting ways to get revenge on his friend, Seungyoun started to prepare the ingredients. Seungwoo didn’t really have a lot to work with for kitchen supplies so the chopping sounds were clumsy as he tried to mince garlic with a paring knife. Curious, he decided to join him.

“Garlic?” He asked, surprised. 

“Mhm, it cancels out if we both eat it. Plus the wine will help break it down,” Seungyoun said, focused on trying not to cut himself. 

Next he minced up the little purple bulbs that were apparently called shallots. He held one up for him and raised his eyebrow at Seungwoo’s confusion. “It’s like an onion but it’s milder.”

“Oh,” he said, having never seen one before. “I guess I should watch more cooking shows.”

“I will have to teach you about all of the types of ingredients that don’t come dried in a ramen packet,” he teased.

Next he prepared the seafood. Or at least he considered preparing it. He thought about it deeply, at least.

“Are you supposed to peel the shrimp first,” Seungyoun mumbled to himself.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing,” Seungwoo asked.

“Of course I do,” he insisted. “I do this all the time! I’m practically a celebrity chef! Hand me my phone, I need to see the recipe.”

Seungwoo snorted. “A professional!”

Seungyoun reached out, but he waved him off. “I’ll get it so you don’t have to rewash your hands.”

“It should still be open on the browser page.” 

“Mhm,” Seungwoo said, noticing that the phone background was a neon, artsy picture of the outside of the fortune teller’s shop but not mentioning it. “Yeah you gotta peel the shrimp and take out the vein thing.”

“Got it,” he said, taking the cleaned paring knife to his little gray friends.

“The vein is poop right?”

“Yep.”

“Please take that out,” Seungwoo laughed.

“Right away!” he cheered brightly. 

Seungwoo looked over the recipe and saw that it said that the scallops had to be patted down. He could do that. He washed his hands and took them out of the bag and put them on a plate since his one cutting board was currently in use. He patted the moisture off with a dry kitchen towel feeling quite pleased with himself.

“Anything else I can do?”

“You look like you’ve got strong hands,” Seungyoun said, trying to hide how thrilled he was that Seungwoo was helping him. “Can you juice the lemon for me?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. Maybe cooking wasn’t awful. 

Once the rest of the ingredients were prepared and laid out for him to throw into the pan, Seungyoun gasped. “I forgot to get butter.”

“I have butter!” Seungwoo said, rushing to his fridge that was now packed with food for once. His mother would be delighted.

Seungyoun sighed in relief and took the foil covered block from him. He hacked off a chunk of it and dropped it in the hot pan until it melted so he could throw in the garlic and shallots.  _ He sure  _ looks _ like he knows what he’s doing.  _

He poured the pasta from the box into a pot of boiling water with a bunch of salt that really wasn’t big enough for cooking spaghetti, but if it stuck together, neither one of them cared. 

Wine, stock, and seafood were added to the pan, and Seungwoo was mesmerized. He knew he wasn’t supposed to look over someone’s shoulder while they cooked, but the way Seungyoun’s hands moved reminded him of an orchestra conductor. What else was he supposed to watch? The television? Boring. 

He folded the cooked pasta into the sauce and finished it off with half of the lemon juice that Seungwoo had squeezed and some pre-grated parmesan they found in a container at the store with the fancy cheeses.

Seungwoo did not have wine glasses so they poured what they had bought into normal cups, but it was fine because neither one of them really cared about that either.

“Ahh, I should have picked up bread,” Seungyoun said, bitter as he looked over the dinner he had cooked.

“No, this is great,” he assured him. “The best chef in town doesn’t need bread.”

Seungyoun looked at him with a grin. “I couldn’t have said it any better myself.”

The recipe from the internet that Seungyoun had memorized before picking him up actually turned out to be pretty good, and Seungwoo was glad that they didn’t go out to eat. This was much more relaxed and suited them both anyway.

The wine went straight to his head, though. He should have known better than to down a glass when Seungyoun wasn’t looking to calm his nerves on an empty stomach. At least he wasn’t as drunk as he was at the chicken place so he probably wouldn’t make a fool of himself.

Seungyoun poured them both another glass.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” He laughed.

“I’m trying to get  _ me _ drunk,” he said. “So far I am the only one of us who no one has had to carry out of somewhere in the last week.”

“If you wanted me to carry you, all you had to do was ask,” he teased. The first night Seungyoun couldn’t join them because he was the designated driver, and the second time was because he had to come pick Seungwoo up from a bad night. He realized that this meant that Seungyoun probably wasn’t going to go home that night, and there wasn’t a part of him that wanted him to leave anyway.

“What are you thinking?” He asked.

“I’m thinking that you’re an excellent cook,” he lied. He felt warm all over. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the wine or the company, but he never wanted that feeling to go away. 

Seungyoun eyed him. “No you’re not.”

“How do you know?”

He leaned forward and examined Seungwoo’s face. “Because this isn’t an  _ I like the food  _ smile.”

“Maybe it’s an  _ I like the cook  _ smile _ . _ ”

And Seungyoun broke out into a happy grin, too flustered to deny him his explanation. It was true. Seungwoo was falling for him. But he had been ever since he saw him at the bus stop, hadn’t he? 

Still flustered by Seungwoo’s small, sudden confession (and the fact that he was openly staring at him with loving, glazed over eyes), Seungyoun stood up and started clearing off the table.

“Let me wash up,” Seungwoo said. “You did all the work. Go relax.”

“No, I can’t let you do that,” he said.

“Go, or I’ll invite the others over and tell them you cooked,” he threatened playfully.

Seungyoun let out an exasperated wail. “You wouldn’t!”

“I would! Go!”

It didn’t take long to clean, and Seungyoun put on some music while he worked that he guessed he would like. He hadn’t heard it before, but it somehow perfectly suited his taste. 

“This is good,” he shouted over his shoulder.

“You like it?” Seungyoun came into the kitchen and picked up a towel to dry off what he had washed.

“I said I’d get it,” he scolded.

“I’m just helping,” he insisted. “I’m bored.”

“I’ll try to wash faster,” he laughed. “I don’t normally have more than a single pot at a time.”

“Ah, I forgot you’re totally out of your element.”

“I am!”

“When you’re finished, let’s open the second bottle,” he said, and Seungwoo side eyed him, but he didn’t say anything. He was feeling a bit thirsty too now that he thought about it. 

He finished up and joined him in the living room. Seungwoo sat on his couch, and Seungyoun hopped up on stool next to the speaker, each with a refilled glass of wine and now nothing to distract them.

“Can I ask you something,” Seungwoo said. “And try not to make fun of me.”

“I make no promises, but what is it?”

“Can you play what you were listening to at the bus stop?” He asked, knowing how dumb he sounded, but his curiosity would never be satisfied otherwise.

“The bus stop?” He twisted his mouth, confused. “Ah! I always listen to this when it’s raining because I feel like I’m supposed to for some reason.”

He pulled up the song, and it was one he hadn’t heard before. He wasn’t expecting it to sound like it did.

“It’s heartbreaking,” he said, sensing Seungyoun was waiting for him to give him his opinion. “The music sounds cheerful, but the words… ow.”

“I think only half of the people who listen to it notice that it’s sad,” he said. “Something about it makes me feel better for some reason.”

Seungwoo remembered what the fortune teller said about Seungyoun, and he realized he had let himself be distracted by all the laughs and jokes too much. 

“Are you okay,” he asked.

“Is anyone?” Seungyoun smiled. 

Seungwoo shook his head. “Probably not.”

The song ended leaving a lingering feeling of melancholy between them. The mood wasn’t ruined, but they understood each other a little more. They were just two people with too many thoughts without someone to talk about them with. Seungyoun could tell him anything he wanted, and he would listen. He decided he wanted to be there for everything no matter how happy or sad it could be.

“What–,” Seungyoun started. Seungwoo realized he had been staring, but the other closed his mouth before he asked him what he was thinking. Seungwoo was glad he didn’t ask about that. “What’s your favorite song?”

Seungwoo told him and watched him find it and listen to the first few notes. 

“It makes me want to dance,” he said.

“It’s too slow!”

“No it isn’t!” Seungyoun insisted. “Look!”

He came over to where he was sitting and pulled him off the couch. Seungwoo’s breath caught in his throat next to where his heart was hiding. 

“Like this,” he said with a smile, and he slowly moved them to the music. “Hey, this is a sad song too.”

“Yes, but you wanted to dance to it so there’s no backing out now.”

“No, there isn’t,” he wrapped his arms around his neck and smiled. 

He was slightly shorter than him. Not drastically, but just enough that Seungwoo had to tilt his chin down to look at him. He looked back with sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks from the wine that made them both too comfortable. If it had been anyone else, it could have been dangerous. But there was a warmth between them that rose up Seungwoo’s legs, into his chest, and as far up as his mouth, and then he had a thought. 

He had already fallen for him. 

If it wasn’t for the chaos of his friends, the stress of his job, and his own resistance, he would have already known. But Seungyoun looked at him too with so much love and kindness that it was unmistakable. He was his. They were each other’s. 

He reached his hand up to touch his cheek, and Seungyoun stopped dancing, frozen by the sudden gesture, and Seungwoo wondered if he was doing too much. He could blame it on the wine if he had to. That was a perfectly reasonable excuse. No one could blame him for what he was about to do.

He tilted his own head to find Seungyoun’s mouth, but he stopped himself as their lips barely brushed together. He heard the other inhale sharply before moving up just enough to him to close the space between them.

It was soft and slow at first — more of a wordless conversation between them than a kiss.  _ Thank you for coming into my life.  _ And as the kiss deepened and became more desperate, their silent words were replaced with gasps for air and happy sounds that filled the silence from the music that ended moments ago.

Seungyoun held himself up with his arms around Seungwoo as the (slightly) taller buried his face into his neck for kisses that traveled down to his collarbones. He tilted his head back as he ran his fingers through Seungwoo’s hair, completely taken over.

He knew he couldn’t do what he wanted to. Not yet. He wanted to take his time with him. He needed to savor him because he had been a gift. He felt it in his heart that if he took this moment for granted, it would be fleeting.

He pulled away, out of breath with swollen lips. “Sorry.”

Seungyoun smiled, dizzy and overwhelmed. “For what?”

“Letting myself get carried away.”

“Do you ever let yourself just have what you want?”

Before he could answer, Seungyoun threw himself at him. He dragged him to the couch, and Seungwoo let out a surprised gasp as he fell with him. 

His fingers went to Seungwoo’s shirt buttons first, tickling as they brushed over the exposed skin. Their kisses that had been their own secret wordless conversation said a lot more than thoughts of gratitude.

He pulled Seungyoun’s sweater over his head and got him on his back. Seungyoun’s hands ran over his chest and up his neck to pull him down to him. He tugged at his bottom lip, and Seungwoo was about to lose his mind.

“Watch it,” he warned.

“Why?” he looked up at him like he knew what he was doing.

“I might not be able to stop myself,” he said, breathless.

“Who wants you to?”

That was all he needed to toss away his last ounce of restraint. He wanted him, and there wasn’t an inch if his body he wasn’t about to take the whole night to explore.

“I want you,” he muttered into Seungyoun’s ear, his voice trembling. 

The other nodded, and the next thing he knew, they were collapsed on top of each other, breathless and satisfied.

“Holy shit,” Seungyoun said, exhausted. He glistened with sweat, and Seungwoo thought he looked like a diamond.

“Uh huh,” he said dumbly, finding the other’s chest to rest his face on.

_ “Holy shit,”  _ he said again, grabbing onto Seungwoo like he needed to gather his senses.

Seungwoo had to laugh. “Did you lose your words?”

“I think you sucked them out of me.”

He lifted his head to glare at him, earning a terrible giggle. He dropped his head back down and grumbled. “Why do I surround myself with evil people?”

“I think it must say something about you,” he said simply.

“I’m a delicious slice of cake, and you’re all flies.”

Seungyoun giggled.

“Quiet you.”

He giggled louder and couldn’t stop himself, and Seungwoo thought it was absolutely adorable. He laughed like a child when he was happy, and Seungwoo was just going to have to suffer to make sure he never stopped.

“I think we need more wine,” he said, but as he tried to get up, Seungyoun pulled him back down.

“Wait, I’m not ready yet.”

“Okay, we can stay like this,” he said softly, noticing that he had become more of a baby now compared to when he was trying to take care of everyone. 

It started to rain softly, and it was enough to lull them to sleep, but it wasn’t time to sleep yet. They still had the rest of the night to spend together.

“We’re really too big for this couch,” Seungwoo said.

“Hmmmm,” he said. “What should we do about it?”

“I have an idea,” he said, getting up.

They redressed but in more comfortable clothes that time. Seungyoun put on his gym clothes that Seungwoo had borrowed the week before and washed. He caught him smelling the t-shirt and smiling to himself when he thought Seungwoo was looking, and his heart melted. 

“Wait here,” he said before running off to dig into his junk closet. Miscellaneous items tumbled to the ground as he dug out the box he was looking for, but he could clean it up later.

“An air mattress?” Seungyoun asked, surprised.

“Yeah, you can put it together with a hair dryer!” Seungwoo said, pleased with himself. “I’ve always wanted to try camping.”

“How are you supposed to plug in a hair dryer in the woods,” Seungyoun teased.

“Listen, I realized that which is why I didn’t buy the tent,” he said.

“But you still bought the air mattress?”

“Do you want to camp with me or not,” he pouted.

“Yes, I would love to camp with you.”

It took forever to blow up with a hair dryer which made it a thousand times more entertaining for Seungyoun as he watched from the couch with his glass of wine while Seungwoo sat on the floor determined to make it work. 

Seungwoo tried not to pout, but he felt like an idiot. He was about to give up on the idea when Seungyoun crawled down to the floor and scooted himself behind him. He wrapped his arms around his waist and smooshed their cheeks together.

“What?” Seungwoo asked.

“You looked frustrated,” he said. “Do you want me to hold the hairdryer for a while.”

“ _ No,”  _ he said, embarrassed. “Can you stay here, though?”

“Mhm,” he rested his head on his shoulder. “For as long as you want.”

“So that means you’re stuck here, right?” He teased, but a part of him was hopeful.

“That is correct,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow we can spend the morning together, and then go get Wooseok and Hangyul.”

“That sounds nice,” he said. He reached back and kissed him, careful to not accidentally disconnect the hair dryer from the mouth of the mattress. Any other person would have probably dreaded spending time with their friends when they were so busy falling in love, but it didn’t feel new to either of them. It didn’t make sense to uproot their lives when they were just putting together two pieces of the same puzzle. Hopefully Wooseok wouldn’t ask too many questions.

The makeshift bed was ready, and he covered it with pillows and blankets for them. It was better than any campsite in the world, even if he didn’t have a tent. 

They put on a movie, so as Seungyoun had said, it wasn’t the dinner and movie date he had expected, but it was so much better. After a second round of what they had started on the couch, he fell asleep in the arms of his umbrella hero who he was absolutely about to try to spend the rest of his life with. He wasn’t sure if it was fate, but it did feel like magic.

Seungwoo woke alone under a pile of blankets and pillows on an air mattress in his living room. His first thought was that it had been a wild fever dream and that he had caught Wooseok’s illness. But then he had another, more clarified thought that made his stomach turn.

Seungyoun was gone. 

He looked back at the couch first, and he wasn’t there. He got up and checked his room to see if he had ended up in his bed, but it was just a pile of his own clothes. He called out, but his apartment was empty except for him. 

He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Call him? Let him go and accept that it was just a one night stand? He was devastated, and he cursed himself for getting too attached too fast for no reason.

But then he noticed Seungyoun’s sweater draped over the couch, and his pants not too far away from where Seungwoo had tossed them himself. That was strange. If he had taken off, he would have taken his clothes with him, wouldn't he? What if he had been abducted by aliens? 

Before he could get on the phone with NASA, there was a knock at the door. He opened it to find Seungyoun with a bag of donuts and a carrier of coffees for them for breakfast and a cheeky grin on his face.

Seungwoo let out a sigh in relief. 

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully. “I woke up first and decided we needed something to energize us if we’re going to have to take on both Hangyul and Wooseok.”

Seungwoo smiled, stepping aside to let him in. “Sugar, bread, and caffeine?”

“Of course!”

“No McDonalds?” He asked, suspicious.

Seungyoun shook his head. “This is a special occasion. It wouldn’t work with a breakfast sandwich.”

“What kind of occasion,” he eyed him. 

“Hold out your hand,” he said. 

Seungwoo wasn’t sure what he was up to, but he figured it was better not to ask. He held his hand up, and Seungyoun positioned it into the shape he wanted which was almost a hooked pointing gesture.

“There we go,” Seungyoun said, satisfied. He took a strawberry glazed donut with sprinkles and placed it on Seungwoo’s finger. Seungwoo tried not to smile as hard as his face wanted him to. “Han Seungwoo, will you spend most of your nights and weekends and free time with me?”

“Do I get to tell people that my boyfriend has a fast food addiction,” he said.

Seungyoun’s face flushed at the word boyfriend — a word he wasn’t actually able to say himself. He nodded excitedly. 

Seungwoo held the donut to his mouth and took a bite. “This is good! The next proposal is on me.”

Seungyoun crouched down to take a bite from the opposite side. “Mmm! It is good!”

He snatched the donut from his finger and scurried off like a child. “Hey!”

“This was the only strawberry one they had,” Seungyoun said with a mouthful of stolen donut. 

Seungwoo looked down into the bag filled with loose sprinkles and smudges of pink icing. “Liar! I can see the evidence right here!”

“I was hungry!” He whined. 

“Fine, I like the chocolate kind better anyway.”

“Ahhhh, I knew you were a chocolate person,” he said proud of himself.

“No you didn’t!” Seungwoo laughed.

And they bickered for the rest of the morning playfully over donuts between quick shared kisses and general private sweetness before collecting Hangyul and Wooseok for Mario Kart and a bunch of food delivered that no one had to cook. As much as he loved Seungyoun’s pasta, he was so happy that he didn’t have to spend the night doing more dishes.

The four of them finally had a night where no one threw up or cried, and it was his most healing weekend he had ever had. It didn’t matter what work threw at him, he had Seungyoun (who he could text as much as he wanted), Wooseok, and maybe now Hangyul too.

He wasn’t sure if it was because he was high off of his own feelings, but it sure seemed like Wooseok and Hangyul had gotten closer to each other since one took the other’s job. But maybe he was just imagining things. But maybe he wasn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to leave it at a T rating so I made the sex scene mild on purpose 
> 
> I don’t have a lot to say but OH MAN THIS WAS A BIG CHAPTER I AM SORRY

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for taking the time to read! I hope you enjoyed it! Chapters 2 and 3 are ryeonseung heavy. ❤️ 
> 
> Twitter is @seungteefs


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